Loving one who loves you even when you don't love their kind
A short, but true story about Bob
vol. 5 IKL 2
Greetings,
I am not much of a cat person. I gravitate to dogs and horses, but dogs don’t always make good city apartment pets, and horses never do.
Which is why when I lived with my then-husband in New York City, we had not one but two cats. We had wanted a pet, but Mr. was an opera singer, and we travelled a lot. Dogs had yet to become accepted by airlines and others as furry kids, so accommodating them on the road wasn’t as easy as it is today.
And so, cats it was. One cat would have been lonely when we weren’t home, two was just enough stink to manage with good cat litter, so that is how we became parents to Bob and Vera.
Don’t let their 1950s married-couple-from-Milwaukee-who-bowl-on-Saturday-nights names fool you. They were downtown tuxedo cats with serious swagger. Well, Bob was. Vera mostly hid under the furniture until she was hungry and then she never. shut. up. until you fed her. But she did that daily at dinner o’clock with such unfailing dedication, I considered her an artist of the 10,000 hours of practice kind.
When we had our son, the day he came home from the hospital, Bob climbed into my knitting bag and peed in it, ruining hundreds of dollars of yarn. I was so furious, I offered to give Bob to one of my neighbors, who declined, but not because she didn’t love Bob; she did. It was only because she was not hormonal and realized I would regret it after a few days (or months) when my post-partum condition returned to balance.
As it turned out, Bob decided he liked the new hairless creature, and adopted our son as his pet. As our son grew, Bob was there with him as his constant companion. He would curl up at the edge of the bed when it was story time. He’d arrange himself in the window waiting for his boy to come home from school. He’d chase the dratted dog (we’d left the City by then and had a back yard) down the stairs, delighting our son, who found the dog annoying.
Until one day, I arrived home early from work to find Bob on his back, chewing on an electrical cord, a behavior I had never seen him exhibit in all 18 of his years, and which I understood was to keep him occupied until his boy came home from school. Bob’s kidneys had been failing; we had known his time would be soon.
When I saw the school bus arrive, I called to my son to come quick, Bob was waiting for him. I placed Bob in my son’s lap, and slowly, but steadily, Bob relaxed as each of his bodily systems shut down one at a time. His final act of loving companionship was to pass on through his boy’s arms.
That was a while ago. I haven’t missed being a cat mom since.
But, a close friend is very much a cat person.
Which is how I found myself recently surrounded by cats, cats, and more cats. We were at a privately run cat rescue and rehab facility so my friend could meet a cat she’d been following on Facebook. We were there to see if he was every bit as enticing in person as he was in his picture.
While my friend cavorted with the kitties, I was slowly asphyxiating. Forty cats is 39 too many for my aging immune system. Still, I was charmed by the compassion of the owners whose mission in life was to rehabilitate and house that many cats in comfort, and so I made the rounds of the place out of sheer respect for the effort.
Although I approached a number of cats to pet them — just to be polite and say hello — not one of them had any interest in me, and scurried off when I stooped down to stroke their fur. They knew.
So, persona non-grata non-cat person that I was, I began to head outside to wait for my friend, when suddenly, I felt a slight bump against my shin.
There at my foot was a rather small tiger cat, making mobius band motions around my leg and purring loudly enough that I could hear him from my human height.
I was informed of his pedigree by the boss cat lady: found in a hoarder’s house with a hella bunch of other cats, but seemed to like humans and was well-socialized (so often they aren’t apparently). Oh, and his name was Bob.
The only cat in the joint who didn’t ignore me was named Bob.
Well, goodbye Bob, I said. I have to go breathe now.
When I got to the car, I had that eerie feeling someone was watching me. I looked up. There in the window was Bob.
I took the above photo of him looking out through the glass, but because of the time of day and the slant of the light, the reflection of powerlines and sky also factored in.
Thanks, Bob. It was nice to be reminded I loved a cat once without really loving cats.
Peace,
Whitney
So sweet! And you are a knitter! Awesome!
Such a sweet story (and I am NOT a cat lover). xo