The Dandy Lion

When I was around seven years old, I wrote a eulogy for a dying cat. I was a melodramatic child who lived out in the country in an area known for dog and cat dumping. The 70s were crazy times. Animal rescue wasn’t a thing. Pets seemed more, well, disposable, for lack of better words. At least, that is the way it seemed to me. Every morning was a new adventure. One day might provide the companionship of a heavily pregnant shepherd mix. The next day could have me wooing timid cats. We even provided a wayward goose with a soft place to land for a few months. We rehabilitated a nestless trio of too young bunnies whose mother had fallen victim to an evil tractor. Though never successfully hatched, there were many fallen swallow eggs coddled under lights, wrapped in the warmth of my mother’s heating pad. My father was not excited by the thought of spending money on feeding animal mouths over people mouths, but we did everything we could to help. Daddy was known to show up at his friends’ homes with a plea to accompany him to the animal shelter where a city address could enable a guy from the boondocks to drop off a collection of mutts no one wanted anymore. I would become inconsolable at the loss of “my” dogs and cats (the goose left town on his own), but daddy would sit me in his lap and tell me the story of Peter Rabbit and how he freed all the pets from the tar pit. “You see, DD,” my father would gently say, “if Peter kept all these animals, he wouldn’t be able to help all the new ones who needed him.” This was all before Emmanuel, though.

I remember running through the house to find my mother, screaming loudly enough to wake the dead, according to her recitation of the moment. “Momma, it’s a kitten!” I shrieked. I already knew there was an issue. I’d found this sickly kitten on our front porch. We were neither front porch nor front door people. All comings and goings occurred at our back door. That’s where the carport was where we parked, where company came and went, and where the stray cats all gathered to eat. I had been hiding in my favorite spot, the tiny space between the sofa and the wall. I loved seeking refuge in that little crevice. It was either the polyester fabric on the brown sofa, the scratchy red fibers on the indoor/outdoor carpet my father had procured for our home from the unclaimed freight store, or the ash paneling in our living room. It smelled so good. However you slice it, I was probably inhaling straight formaldehyde fumes. I especially loved how I could hide there for an eternity without being found. Sometimes I wondered if anyone was looking for me in the first place. Had I not been practiced at being impressively quiet for big swaths of time, I would never have heard the tiny kitten mews.

My mother cautioned me. “Don’t get too close to it. Don’t touch it. And, whatever you do, don’t fall in love with it,” I recall her saying. “It’s sick. It’s going to die.” I was adamant that I knew more than she did about this cat life thing. HE wasn’t going to die because HE had me now. “Sweetie-pie, its mother isn’t here. This kitten is too young to be wandering around on a front porch. Its eyes are just opening.” As the next few hours progressed, I began to see that momma was right. This tiny cat was not going to make it. The movements were fewer, the mews lighter, the desperation, far heavier. Banned from touching a too small kitten, I decided to sit there for as long as it took. I named him Emmanuel and went in search of the only thing that made sense, a pencil and a legal pad. As the light dimmed on the day, I sat with him far past the time when he was gone. I don’t think you understand these things when you’re 7. I had a sense, though, that he needed a voice. Who better than me? Everyone needs a will and testament, after all.

We are 60 days into the year, and in my neighborhood, we’ve managed to TNR 3 cats already. Trap, neuter, release - the catchy acronym folks in the cat rescue world use for the feral cat community. If we cannot touch them, the least we can do is to try and make their lives a bit easier by reducing reproduction/ population, eliminating wandering, and subduing territorial fighting. 2 of the 3 TNRs were mine. I was finally able to secure the older kittens I’d been attempting to catch for 6 months. Simultaneously, my buddy on the next street gleefully informed me that she’d trapped the large male tom that had sired the litter from my house and several others in the area. The year seemed so full of promise! I was especially happy for that tom cat, Puff Daddy. Not many male sires showcase the amount of gentleness he did with his offspring. While he didn’t appreciate my attempts to pet him, he lived for sunny afternoons on my porch, as he and the last two kittens from his final litter lazily recuperated from their surgeries together.

We found Puff Daddy this morning. I’d like to think he died trying to get back to the porch. It is impossible to know what predator was responsible, but based on the scope of his injuries, my money is on a coyote. Here I sit, 50 years later, a modernday pad and pencil in my hand, once again. Another one needs a voice. Who better than me? Here lies a great cat, a dandy lion of the highest degree. May the mice be plentiful. May the breeze stay at his back. May he stalk the meadows of Heaven in peace.