Mothering A Cat Who Would Just as Soon Do Without

Mothers day always reminds me of Frenchie, the cat that wouldnt. Wouldnt anything. Orneriness was his middle name I often complained to Dan. Today I got home from church at noon and realized I needed a good deep nap before going to dinner with our Youngest Son at 5:30 pm and being good company. So I carefully took off the skirt and blouse of delicate ecru silky stuff, tossed my red Dutch shoes in the corner and opened the window over my pillow wide to the sky and wind.

I was asleep immediately because I hadnt slept the night before and so used that time to work on a book project I have going. That made it easy to fall asleep this afternoon. Suddenly I was awakened by the snarl of a nasty unhappy cat and a huge dog. I had left the quaint little garden gate open again that Dan had made me to keep in our now goneto-heaven golden retriever, The Duchess. I looked groggy out the window and sure enough, the dog from next door and a calico I had never seen before were nearly nose to nose and both were drooling with anticipation. I hate playing referee.

These scenes reminded me of Frenchie the feral cat that always left cutter marks on my forearms. A friend and masseuse had given me a bottle of some herbal concoction called something like Scar-Be-Gone for my nine inches of mastectomy and I was using it on every scar I had on my body. This stuff works! But Frenchies claw marks meant something; they had love in them as well as his fear. This calico was just using my back garden as a shortcut and the neighbor dog was lookin for trouble.

As sleepy as I was, I was awake enough to see we could have a real 911 problem on

our hands if I didnt stop the action before it started. I had to get out there fast and separate two that should never tangle. It all reminded me of Frenchie and I was hurtin with memory. He was such an asshole. Hed swipe at any part of my body after eating human consumption tuna on a nice bread plate bought at a thrift store just for stray cats and think nothing of thanks for the grub. I got rid of the big dog, turned the hose on the calico, (I never trust a tri-color) and sat in my slip on the back steps reflecting about this troublesome cat who disappeared one winter and broke my heart. Frenchie would be gone for weeks and then saunter in like it was just yesterday, come straight up to me and pat my arm, Wheres le petit dejuneur, madame?

I would make nice all over him, and sure enough hes swipe my forearm with claws extended and I would bleed in seconds because my heart meds mixed with aspirin make nice red paint. But still, I would get up and pour some cream, or open some tuna, (which I no longer buy) and serve him up. Hed scarf it down like he hadnt eaten in weeks and Im quite sure that was the story, but afterward, hed let me pet his head between the ears and sing songs in bad French to him. In high school I liked the bad boys too. Frenchie was the ultimate bad boy in the feline form. He was Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. He was Kurt Cobain, but I loved him. I snuggled up as nonchalantly as I could, trembling with love and wonder and as I sang, I could hear, under my terrible lyrics, his purr like a bassline. Frenchie was opening his heart to me and there I was like a mother visiting her son in prison, tears running down my face, weeping for the badness to disappear as his belly filled with goodness, even if tuna was not the right thing to feed him. I could see he now had very few teeth and without teeth, animals in the wild are simply prey for younger healthier animals. I havent seen him in several years and I think this is what happened. Or maybe he curled up in some quiet place, maybe the sun warming his back

and as his breath came slower and slower, I like to think he was remembering the woman who never said No, never ran him off and always scratched just the right spots along his tail line as he lie in the warmth of the sun. Its the mother in me. I know my sons are warm and safe and have full bellies.

The mother sitting on the back porch is trusting that God took one lonely cat off quietly, without pain, maybe smelling the sun-warmed roses which are blooming now all over town. This is a good Mothers Day thought for me. Easy, without the roughness of Julia Ward Howes declaration that Mothers day be a day for all the mothers, sweethearts, sisters, and wives whose sons and lovers, sweethearts and husbands are closing their eyes for a brief moment in the middle of the civil war. I am time-traveling in this porch-warmed slumber between the here and the then of two wars, all wars. I am hoping that the peace we all long for is opening itself like a flower pushed through a young boys button hole as he trudges along a country road, not even spying the slumbering cat under the wild rose bush who is letting go, letting go of his own weary traveling and maybe remembering a woman who lives in all time with her pen and her love of all things wild.