A Dickens of a Cat

Every neighborhood had one. You remember. A cat lady who lived alone but had dozens of cats. Dogs were seldom the preferred choice for pet companionship en masse. Perhaps dogs were too busy, or noisy, or expensive, or attracted too much attention from the local licensing authorities. I don’t ever remember a “Dog Lady” but our town certainly had a Cat Lady. I would walk by the infamous house marveling at the cats perched on every window ledge, vigilant sentries stoically poised in motionless duty to her majesty: Queen Cat Lady.

As children we used to count them as best we could: four tabbies, the dingy white one, the scary black one, three calicos, and the one we called Double-o-Three because it had only three legs. For some reason we were fascinated with this menagerie and their matriarch. Secreted in the bushes across the street we would watch the morning ritual with reverence. Cat Lady would come onto the porch with saucers of milk, and the horde would converge eagerly but with respectful dignity. Each would pay homage, in turn, briefly rubbing against ancient legs with tail raised high in salute to their benefactor. She knew them all by name, and some would chat with her between sips of milk. When the milk was gone they would retire, bidding their queen a grateful bow and meow.

It was after the others had gone that Bushbaby would peer out from the prickly bush nearest the porch and timidly make his way up the steps. They had an agreement, Bushbaby and the queen: she would put down a little saucer just for him and then pretend not to see him. There were rules. She would talk to him in a soft baby voice while he was drinking and his tail said that it pleased him. Touching was out of the question. Once Cat Lady tried to renegotiate the contract by stroking the matted head and was chastised by a primal scream so fearful that it sent us screaming home to our own mothers.

We never saw Cat Lady touch Bushbaby again until the day he didn’t come up the stairs and she went into the prickly bush after him. She turned toward us holding the stiff cat, her arms bloody from the prickers on the bush. We watched stone silent as Cat Lady wrapped Bushbaby in a towel and then put him in a box. Ignoring the now dry streaks of blood on her arms, Cat Lady dug a hole beneath the prickly bush and there she deposited the box with the gentleness of a mother. Overcome by the sadness of it all, we became chief mourners at the funeral of Bushbaby. Our wailing and heartbroken sobs drew attention from across the street; her knowing gaze was almost grateful as she wiped sweat from her brow but didn’t bother to wipe the tears streaming from her eyes. She was not mourning her loss alone. It was too much for us. We abandoned our hiding place, we even avoided her street, but for a long time after that every cat reminded me of Bushbaby’s funeral.

The Eyes Don’t Necessarily Have It

We assume cats have excellent vision, but some cat vision is good, some not so much. They do see well at night and in semi-light. But cats are a little nearsighted, and they literally cannot see anything directly under their noses. The cat’s best sense is the olfactory one. This probably explains their love of your unwashed clothes in the laundry basket. Those clothes smell tantalizingly like you. Ever see your cat sniff something at length, then open its mouth for a moment? Cats actually have a second organ for smelling especially interesting odors—the Jacobson’s organ, located in the roof of the mouth.

The years passed. I studied Egyptians and their love affair with the cat and I thought about Cat Lady. I studied psychology and the need of humans for companionship and thought about Cat Lady. I studied religion and the concept of unconditional love and I thought about Cat Lady. I studied English and discovered that Ernest Hemingway broke the cat-collector gender barrier with a score of cats, to whom he left a hefty chunk of his estate, and I thought about Cat Lady. A few years ago, I heard that fire destroyed her home, and Cat Lady was sent to a nursing home, which of course, did not allow even one cat. She promptly died, much to everyone’s surprise... except mine.

I share my life with one feline. Mr. Phil was less of a stray than a fur-person looking to improve his circumstances, and it was my good fortune that he found my accommodations suitable. It has not been without compromise. I have added dog-owner-like walks to my daily regimen; Mr. Phil, for his part, has submitted with dignity to the harness and leash. Our neighbors have become accustomed to seeing us and always address him by name while I, on the other end of the leash, retain my anonymity.

But it is on those rare occasions, encountering a new child, that Mr. Phil hoists his twenty-pound countenance upright like a giant orange-striped pear and, waving a mitten-paw, conducts the symphony of delighted squeals. I did not instruct Mr. Phil; he came with these abilities and tendencies. It was not until yesterday that I discovered that I am known among the children on our route. It came from the bushes, as all truly important proclamations do: “Here comes Cat Lady!” The child’s voice propelled from the hedgerow, catapulting me back to my childhood.

Apparently, a vast number of felines are not required to make a cat lady. The thought of it haunted me. What exactly makes a cat lady? What makes me a cat lady?

I have seen the clever tomes ingratiatingly attributing one’s sum total of knowledge to a dog, or cat, or potbellied pig but, save the importance of naps, I have learned little from Mr. Phil. However, I have learned a great many things from Cat Lady. She was a wealth of inspiration: Cat Lady was accessible. She was generous. She asked nothing in return but graciously accepted her cats’ unique expressions of thanks. She never treated the challenged Double-o-Three any differently than she did the others. She respected Bushbaby’s need for extra personal space but wasn’t afraid to risk rejection to let him know more attention was available, if desired. She used their names and looked them in the eye. She was someone they could depend on. There was always room for one more at her table. She recognized the importance of combining dignity with charity. She didn’t let public detractors sway her from her mission. She didn’t let the absence of human love in her life make her bitter, but instead she took that wealth of untapped love and showered it on the unloved. I regret never getting to know her but after some postmortem research discovered her name was Martha.

In a cat’s eye, all things belong to cats.

English proverb

I am small scale compared to Martha, and I still have lots of contact with people, but to the little ones in the bushes I am Cat Lady and all that the title confers. In this age where it is increasingly difficult to meet people and even more difficult to maintain deep relationships, our greatest risk is forgetting how to give and accept love. Fortunately, the fur people in our lives keep us in touch with our core of loving. If I am ever fortunate enough to find a human being as my companion, he will undoubtedly be someone who has kept in the practice of giving and accepting love with the assist of a fur person.

In the meantime I will enjoy Mr. Phil and wear the crown of Cat Lady with pride.