I don’t want to do this anymore

Jennifer Vanderau
Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter

(4/2021) I really don’t.

I’m just a cat and I’ve been outside since mom had me five years ago. Mom is long gone and so are my siblings. We were separated.

Mom went out one night, probably to find some food, and never came back. I still have no idea what happened to her.

My sister got picked up by a woman who saw us under the porch. My sister was small, way smaller than my brother and me and when the woman showed up, she just froze. Didn’t move a muscle.

The woman picked her up and took her to a car and came back to try to get me and my brother, but we were too fast for her.

Just last year my brother crossed the street because we heard someone had just thrown out some fresh garbage. He didn’t make it. The truck came out of nowhere.

I stayed to say goodbye to him. Not long, though. It wasn’t safe.

I’ve been on my own ever since. I’ve had to figure out how to get food. I’ve had to stay away from animals that I know mean me harm.

And I keep far, far away from the worst one: humans.

I’ve been screamed at, kicked at, had all kinds of rocks thrown at me. One lady chased me with a broom and there was that one time when those kids came at me with something. I don’t know if it was a toy or a weapon or what, but I didn’t stay around long enough to find out.

Running is pretty much second nature to me at this point.

Some nights when I can find a safe place, far away from people and other animals, I think back to the early days. When mom and brother and sister were here with me and sometimes we had food and shelter and would snuggle up together and…

It wasn’t all bad.

It’s funny, you know? When you have a family, you don’t really think you’ll ever lose them. When you have someone to be with and be around and play with and talk to and share this thing called life with, it’s not in your mind that one day you might not have them anymore.

I don’t know that I would have done anything any differently had I known – maybe appreciated it more – but it sure doesn’t hurt any less.

But, I’m alone now. No one to be with me in this day-to-day battle and there’s no real reason to get upset about it. Nothing I can do to change it.

It’s just some nights, the memories of better times really get me.

The day that I smell the tuna, I hadn’t eaten for two straight nights. My stomach actually gave a physical pang when I caught a whiff of it. Didn’t take me long to find it, either. I hesitated. It was way too easy – no one and nothing around.

I was just too hungry. I walked up to the plate – had to go down this odd, tunnel like thing covered in a towel or something, and the second I heard the door shut behind me, I knew I was in serious trouble.

I fought. Like crazy. I banged myself against the sides of the metal cage over and over but I couldn’t get free – all I ended up doing was making a mess of the tuna.

When a woman came and picked up the trap, I figured this was it. At least I’d probably get to see my brother again.

She took me to a building that smelled funny and someone gave me a shot that made me super sleepy. I fought it, but couldn’t resist.

When I woke up, I was groggy and felt really weird. The woman came back and picked up the trap and I just couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Something strange happened when she put me in her car. She started talking to me. I have no idea what she was saying because I never bothered to learn the human words, but she sounded weird. She sounded nice – something I’d never heard from a human before and that made it bizarre.

There was something – I’m sure it was just the effects of the shot – there was something familiar about her. When she stopped the car, she came around to get the trap and set me and it down in the grass. She opened the door.

I can’t explain it, I really can’t, but for some reason, I didn’t move at first, even though every instinct from the last five years was screaming at me to run as fast as I could.

Instead, I watched her. We made eye contact. And there was something there. I saw something in the brown of her eyes. I felt something.

A connection. A kinship, almost. I wondered if she was missing someone, too.

"You can stay if you want," she whispered. "You’ll be safe with me. I promise."

A long-ago feeling expanded in my chest and I know it defies any kind of rational explanation, but for the first time, in the face of a human, I wondered if I could finally get back what I had lost.

I took a few steps out of the trap and skirted around her and headed for the bushes. I heard her whisper, "Be careful, little guy."

That night, I didn’t go too far from her house. I watched her inside, surrounded by the warm glow of the lights in her home and I considered whether or not I could trust her.

Maybe the best way to figure it out is to stick around… and so he did.

I found out later that’s what the humans call what had happened to me.

I’d been neutered. The other cats are never going to take me seriously now.

It happened last week and the lady who had trapped me and taken me to the vet told me that I’d be safe with her. I figured the effects of the sedative must have still been working on me at the time because I really wanted to believe her.

But it wore off, I got my wits about me again and figured I was just being sentimental. For some reason.

I wandered around for a few days, but something strange seemed to have happened to me. The urge to fight and mark my territory and all that other macho stuff had gone away.

I was tired of being scared all the time. I was tired of being on my own.

My mom and siblings are gone and I’m alone and I figure that’s how it’s supposed to be.

But one night when I couldn’t sleep – again – something in me wondered if it had to be this way.

“You can stay if you want,” she whispered. “You’ll be safe with me. I promise.”

It was her voice again. It seemed to echo in my mind. Could I really trust it?

Humans have shown me how awful they really are. The ones I’ve known really seemed to hate me. A lot. I honestly didn’t do anything to them. They just didn’t want me around.

It’s mostly luck that has kept me alive for the last five years. I know I shouldn’t try pressing it now.

By the time the sun comes up, I wander nearer and nearer to the lady’s house. No particular reason. Just wandering.

I laugh at myself when I think of the infamous curiosity and what it did to the cat. It would serve me right if it turns out to be true in my case.

I peek around the corner of her front porch and she’s there with a bowl and some food and a few other cats are around her.

My instincts tell me to just back away. She hasn’t seen me. None of the other cats have seen me (although I suspect they know I was there because I have that ability, too, but they don’t seem to care).

She has long, dark hair and soft-looking clothes. And there’s a soothing sound coming from her. She’s humming, maybe singing, it’s difficult to tell. Sounds almost like a purr – like my mom would do when we had all been together.

Man, I’m getting maudlin in my old age. It’ll probably be the death of me. Literally.

She stands up from filling the bowl and makes eye contact with me.

Darn it. I’d waited too long to get out of here.

Her entire face softens when she sees me. She says, “Hi, there. I was hoping I’d see you again. You feeling okay?”

My chest goes warm at the words and the tone and my God I have never wanted to trust something more in my life. I’m actually shaking with it – the want, the need.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “You take your time. You look pretty good. Get yourself some breakfast and I’ll be back out to see how you’re doing.”

She heads inside and the other cats have left a little in the bowl so I sneak over and get something to eat. There’s a shrub by her steps and I settle in underneath it just to see if she really will be back.

True to her word, she walks outside a little while later and I hear her say, “I see you down there. Thought you could trick me, huh? Well, I’ve had cats all my life and you’ll have to get up pretty early in the morning to get something by me.”

She chuckles. It’s an almost affectionate sound. She says all that as she’s collecting the now empty bowls.

She pulls open the screen door and holds it for a second or two when she says, “I know it’s way too early for us, but you can come inside if you’d like sometime. You’ve had a rough life. The vet told me so when she neutered you. I’ve got other cats inside with me, but they won’t bug you. I think you might like to see what it’s like with someone who would never hurt you. Ever.”

Why am I even listening to this? Why am I even considering it? Am I crazy? Did they take my brain, too, when they neutered me?

I’m still in the shrubs by the time the sun sets and when she offers the open door again with the same kind words and sweet tone, I take a chance.

The biggest of my life.

I walk through the open door.

And in that split second of time, my life becomes absolutely surreal. I’m face to face with a cat that I know, on some instinctive level, is my sister. The one the lady had picked up under the porch so many years ago.

This can’t be that lady, could it?

And around the corner from another room walks a cat – and I stop breathing. It’s my mom. Mother. The cat who had me and took such good care of us when we were little.

The three of us are tentative around each other at first, but we know our connection. You really can’t lose that, no matter what happens. I slunk down when mom finally came up to me, not sure what to expect, but in a second I was her kitten again as she started to groom me.

Five days later I have my own blanket (sometimes I share my sister’s) and food and water every day and the first time the lady touches me, not to chase me away, but to cherish me, I cry a little.

I didn’t know what it was like to be so happy. I didn’t think it was possible for me.

It just goes to show, no matter how hard life may get, good times and a happy ending can be waiting just around the corner.

Or in my case, inside an opened screen door.

*****

Jennifer Vanderau is the Director of Communications for the Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter in Chambersburg, Pa., and can be reached at cvasoc@innernet.net. The shelter accepts both monetary and pet supply donations. For more information, call the shelter at (717) 263-5791 or visit the website www.cvas-pets.org.