Blessed are those who love cats, for they shall never be lonely.
~Author Unknown
It was Christmas 2009, and we were gathered at my mother’s house. My nineteen-year-old son, Levi, and my twenty-year-old nephew, Alex, spotted her first. “Grandma, there’s a cat in the snow outside your window.”
My mother replied, “I’ll bet it’s that black cat that’s been around. I think it belongs to the neighbor.”
Alex shook his head and explained that what he was seeing illuminated by the kitchen light was a small, lighter-colored cat. At that, I was drawn out of my seat. By the time I had opened the door, the cat was ready to come in. I crouched down low to scoop her up in my hands and held her at face level as we stared at one another.
She was lightweight and cold, with ice hanging off her matted, longhaired calico coat. I knew almost immediately I was in trouble. There was something about her sweet face and floppy ragdoll body that spoke right to my heart.
I brought her closer to my chest for warmth. By the time I turned around with her in my arms, eight of my family members were standing in the kitchen observing. At the time, my sister was working for a local pet-treat operation, and I was temporarily fostering a cat named Precious for the Berkshire Humane Society. I had asked my sister to bring some of her company’s treats with her on Christmas for me to purchase and bring back to Precious, so I quickly thought to ask someone to grab them and put a few in the palm of my hand. They disappeared so quickly it gave me a sense of how starved the little bundle in my arms was.
By now, my mother had gone into her cupboard, retrieved a bowl of cat food, and handed it to me. I knelt down with the little stray and placed her on the floor in front of it. I was surprised that my usually loud, Greek family was being so quiet and still. While she ate, I petted her and wondered, What now? I looked up at the faces of my family and saw my seventy-five-year-old aunt who lives alone. I thought, Even though she’s never had a pet, she lives alone, and her home would be an ideal spot for this cat to land. Then I looked over to my sister and said to myself, If our aunt doesn’t work out, then my sister would surely take this cat since she lost hers not that long ago. And I thought, If that doesn’t work out, then my mother will take her since her cat is fourteen years old, and she might like to have another one. Then there was my niece, Rachel, who was already begging my brother to take the cat home to New York.
In my book, this cat had a home. Or four.
But it turned out that no one wanted the stray, so I ended up taking her home. The encounter with Precious did not go well, so I kept them separated for a few days while I figured out a game plan. I called all the area vets and shelters. I took a picture of the Christmas stray and made a poster to hang in various locations near my parents’ home and in vet offices. I brought her to Allen Heights Veterinary Hospital — the only vet that offered to look her over for me — and they shaved off the mats tangled in her fur and told me she seemed sweet.
And then, because I was fostering Precious for another month or two, and I never received any calls from the ads I placed, and both cats were obviously under duress, I surrendered the stray to the same Berkshire Humane Society I was on assignment with.
Over the next few weeks, I became a frequent visitor to the Berkshire Humane Society to see how the sweet, longhaired calico was doing. I noticed things about her each time I went that I hadn’t noticed the time before. For example, half of her nose was orange, and half was gray. Her back legs were pure white and looked like fluffy bloomers. And she had a shorter tail than most cats.
The volunteers there would allow me into the back room where she was being treated medically and let me take her out of her cage. She would let me hold her and rock her, loudly purring the whole time. Her disposition was very sweet.
Finally, on one of my visits, a volunteer told me that the now-healthier stray was almost ready to be moved to a cage in the viewing room in hopes that someone would adopt her. I went home sad that day. The next day, I called and asked if they would keep her in the back room for a little longer. They agreed.
Over the next day or two, I reasoned that I might not have surrendered her had she and Precious gotten along. I considered that I was all set up with a foster-cat room in my house and could easily bring her home to that room, keeping Precious in the main part of the house until she could go back to her owner. It didn’t take much to convince myself that living in one room for a while would be better than being confined to a cage. And last, I remembered that for the past four months, while I had been home on medical leave from my middle-school teaching job recovering from back surgery, I wished many times that I had a cat at home to keep me company.
So I marched into the Humane Society a few days later and purchased my own Christmas kitty back for $125.
What I didn’t realize then was that she would be my savior eighteen months later when I was tangled up in a bicycle accident. I sustained a traumatic brain injury that caused another eight months out of work while I found my footing again. She became the answer to one of my prayers during that time, giving me comfort, company, warmth, joy, purpose, and familiarity at a time when nothing much in my life seemed recognizable.
For a few months after she came home to live with us, she did not have a name. A perfect cat needed a perfect name, I rationalized. There were many offerings from friends and family members, with Noelle being at the top considering she was discovered on Christmas. None seemed to work for me. Finally, my husband returned home from work one day and found her sitting on the top step waiting for him. I heard his booming, deep voice say, “Greta! What’s happening?” And that was that. She is Greta Noelle.
~Stacia Giftos Bissell
