Saturday, July 10, 2010
Angel the Cat
Why would he have just come to us, only to depart so quickly? What are the lessons here?
A couple of months ago, a stray black cat roamed into our yard and let its presence be known to me...it looked forlorn , yet still not too road-weary or bedraggled, yet I still fed it a can of tuna fish and gave it a bowl of water...it gobbled it all down and i saw neither hide nor hair of it for two months or so.
Then, yesterday morning, i heard some loud mewing, looked around in our front yard and there it was again, but a shadow of its former self, and this time truly matted, filthy, clearly starving & so dehydrated i could feel its little skeleton through the matted fur...pitiful...it alarmed me, and made me feel so sad...i gave it another can of tuna, which it barely touched, but it did drink the water I gave it...and after that , it sat by our front door and mewed so loudly for attention, the dogs barked at it. I went to work, but not until calling the animal clinic and our vets to see what could be done...they told me they had rules that prevented them from taking n strays, and suggested I call the animal shelter, where ,after a week, they put unclaimed and sick animals down.
I wasn't ging to take the cat there. So I worked all day, went to rehearsal, and came home in the pouring rain, where I found it still on our porch, mewing to be let inside. The tuna can, however, was empty.
I got a large old beach towel and swept the cat up into it, and by then I had taken to calling it Angel, not at all knowing whether it was a boy or girl cat. I took its food and water downstairs, with the cat still wrapped in the towels, and set to wiping the cat dry, and taking the goo out of its eyes with Kleenex....it seemed glad I was doing all that, and seemed to particularly love the rubbing and attention the cleaning brought his poor tired body.
My heart was breaking the entire time...because I knew I couldn't keep it inside our house for too long.
It wouldn't let me touch the matted fur, as it clearly brought it discomfort to touch its large clumps that had made its skin so tender...i can only imagine how uncomfortable it was.
When Peter got home, I had already put it back outside, but finally, seeing how sad I was, Peter said that we should take it to the vet, damn the cost! This cat had come to us for a reason, and we needed to pay attention to it. and so we did. We drove it, wrapped in its towels, over to the animal hospital where Dr.Carol Mask paid immediate attention to our new little orphan. We went back into the exam room with her and the cat, where she right away determined Angel is a boy, certified its dehydrated and starving state, and drew blood for a small panel of tests. She also told us he was an older cat, probably 10 or 12 years old, so we knew we were dealing with a particular set of possibilities: it could be near its end, no matter how we strove to save its life. So, we left Angel with Carol, so he could be sheared clean of its matting, and fed with the right food and meds, and we determined to pick it up today. She called us late last evening to say all seemed to be on track for that pickup.
THen today she told us she wanted to keep Angel for another night to see if he began to have bowel movements, as she had found some hard lumps in his clean shaven tummy and wanted to determine how they would be affecting him: it could be swollen glands, treatable by meds, or something more serious, in which case, we'd never be bringing him home. So that's where we are now: we may have him here tomorrow, or we may not.
And i feel this strong urge to go over to the hospital and and pet him, hold, him, love him. It's so odd.
Why did this little creature come into our lives right now? To remind us that there were more important things to pay attention to than our own anxieties about moving to San Francisco? That other creatures needed us more than our egos needed us? To remind is we do know how to love?
Is Angel the re-incarnation of someone important from a previous lifetime of ours? Why us? Why now?
What is this?
More on Angel and our possible future together soon.
A couple of months ago, a stray black cat roamed into our yard and let its presence be known to me...it looked forlorn , yet still not too road-weary or bedraggled, yet I still fed it a can of tuna fish and gave it a bowl of water...it gobbled it all down and i saw neither hide nor hair of it for two months or so.
Then, yesterday morning, i heard some loud mewing, looked around in our front yard and there it was again, but a shadow of its former self, and this time truly matted, filthy, clearly starving & so dehydrated i could feel its little skeleton through the matted fur...pitiful...it alarmed me, and made me feel so sad...i gave it another can of tuna, which it barely touched, but it did drink the water I gave it...and after that , it sat by our front door and mewed so loudly for attention, the dogs barked at it. I went to work, but not until calling the animal clinic and our vets to see what could be done...they told me they had rules that prevented them from taking n strays, and suggested I call the animal shelter, where ,after a week, they put unclaimed and sick animals down.
I wasn't ging to take the cat there. So I worked all day, went to rehearsal, and came home in the pouring rain, where I found it still on our porch, mewing to be let inside. The tuna can, however, was empty.
I got a large old beach towel and swept the cat up into it, and by then I had taken to calling it Angel, not at all knowing whether it was a boy or girl cat. I took its food and water downstairs, with the cat still wrapped in the towels, and set to wiping the cat dry, and taking the goo out of its eyes with Kleenex....it seemed glad I was doing all that, and seemed to particularly love the rubbing and attention the cleaning brought his poor tired body.
My heart was breaking the entire time...because I knew I couldn't keep it inside our house for too long.
It wouldn't let me touch the matted fur, as it clearly brought it discomfort to touch its large clumps that had made its skin so tender...i can only imagine how uncomfortable it was.
When Peter got home, I had already put it back outside, but finally, seeing how sad I was, Peter said that we should take it to the vet, damn the cost! This cat had come to us for a reason, and we needed to pay attention to it. and so we did. We drove it, wrapped in its towels, over to the animal hospital where Dr.Carol Mask paid immediate attention to our new little orphan. We went back into the exam room with her and the cat, where she right away determined Angel is a boy, certified its dehydrated and starving state, and drew blood for a small panel of tests. She also told us he was an older cat, probably 10 or 12 years old, so we knew we were dealing with a particular set of possibilities: it could be near its end, no matter how we strove to save its life. So, we left Angel with Carol, so he could be sheared clean of its matting, and fed with the right food and meds, and we determined to pick it up today. She called us late last evening to say all seemed to be on track for that pickup.
THen today she told us she wanted to keep Angel for another night to see if he began to have bowel movements, as she had found some hard lumps in his clean shaven tummy and wanted to determine how they would be affecting him: it could be swollen glands, treatable by meds, or something more serious, in which case, we'd never be bringing him home. So that's where we are now: we may have him here tomorrow, or we may not.
And i feel this strong urge to go over to the hospital and and pet him, hold, him, love him. It's so odd.
Why did this little creature come into our lives right now? To remind us that there were more important things to pay attention to than our own anxieties about moving to San Francisco? That other creatures needed us more than our egos needed us? To remind is we do know how to love?
Is Angel the re-incarnation of someone important from a previous lifetime of ours? Why us? Why now?
What is this?
More on Angel and our possible future together soon.
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