Cats On My Path

I didn't get to sleep until after 3:00am. My restless mind wouldn't shut down. Yackety-yack-yack. Somehow, in the midst of all the chatter, I became fixated on dead cats. My dead cats. The ones who touched my life and then moved on.

There have been many in the past few years because I have lived in neighborhoods where most of the people don't believe in spaying and neutering their animals and, well, you know how that goes in the feline kingdom. For a long time I lived as an animal rescuer. My main focus became saving feral/stray cats and kittens who wound up in my yard. I spayed/neutered every cat that stayed more than 2 weeks; I brought countless cats and kittens to the vet to have injuries and illnesses taken care of, or, alternately, to have a doomed animal humanely euthanized.

I can't even tell you how much money I've spent in the last 13 years on vet bills and food. But I loved every one of those forlorn cats - from the tiniest 2-day-old abandoned kitten to the beat-up old tom cat to the wildest, most feral of them all. And when they died from dog/car/people attacks, from deadly illnesses, or from congential defects, I bled. From a high of 30 cats at the same time, I am now the caretaker of seven cats (and two dogs) who live quietly with me here in our bungalow. I have told everyone, including God, that this no-kill shelter is closed. I can no longer go through what I have gone through in the past 13 years. (I have also, during this time, rescued five dogs, all of whom found good homes. Three other abandoned dogs I tried to save disappeared before I could help them.)

I know there are thousands of other animals out there that need rescue and I know that there are thousands of people out there trying to do just that. Sometimes this world is so sad, but there are always the bright moments that open the sky and let the goodness of life shine through. When I watch my dogs play or my cats curled in sleep, life just doesn't get better than that.