Nonfiction: A tale of three cats
Helena Writes #88
Helena Clare Pittman, one of the Center’s most dedicated teachers, has written, painted, and taught her entire life. In her monthly Helena Writes series, she shares a lifetime of wisdom, one pearl at a time.
In her 88th post, Helena reflects on the cats in her life and what they, and those who both hurt and helped them, have taught her about humanity. Enjoy!
Finding Thomas
I can’t remember how Thomas came to us, but it wasn’t long after we saved Louisa. And little did we know then how both those cats would change all of us.
Theo, who we still called Theodora, wanted to call him Thomothy. I only realize this now. She was hunting around for a sound that would go with Louisa. I was the one who took it to mean Thomas. Sixty years later, now as I write, I realize what she was trying to say. Thomathy would have been a wonderful name. I thought I was helping, clearing things up, I keenly remember the moment—a memory! Which tells me I was suddenly awakened from ordinary life, and here it is, preserved as if in amber. And so we called the black cat that came into our lives Thomas.
Thomas and Louisa liked each other from the start. I don’t remember hissing or fighting. I remember them sleeping together on our green plush couch. Together, they had one litter. Then we must have had them neutered.
My sister, Jo, and my brother-in-law, Michael, took home two cats from Thomas and Louisa’s litter. They were solid black, like Thomas. I remember them, tiny, in a box in the bathroom of the apartment we inherited from my parents—Michael and Jo took it over after my mother died. I don’t know that animals were allowed in the co-op. But there were Lester and Lacey, little pink mouths hissing in my direction, me sitting in Jo’s bathroom.
Michael was allergic to those two, at first. But his body must have adapted. Lester and Lacey were only the first two.
Saving Louisa
Theo and I, walking home from the Jewel Avenue bus stop. Theo is about four. A group of children, excited about something. Suddenly I see her, tiger striped, crouching, terrified. Some of those children are throwing rocks at her. They shout to Theo and me: “It has six toes!” I don’t know if I stopped. I know I scooped her up under my arm and Theo and I continued home.
Those children were callous. Already asleep. If they’d been infants, they would have registered pain, empathy, on their faces. But the faces that were moving into the distance behind us were mean. These children were seven years old, maybe eight. I wonder if there was one among them who didn’t want to hurt the kitten who became our Louisa, but didn’t have the courage, the clarity, to stop the brutality. Lincoln had it. Abraham Lincoln had it. He stopped a group of children from hurting a turtle. That tells me that his father, also named Thomas, had character. Cruelty and empathy. So monumental in this life we live, one, in a group of children, has the capacity to change history.
And I confess it here, somewhere between my childhood and that day when I was in my twenties, I had moved from callousness to empathy. I’d had two parakeets as a child. I ache for those birds now, and that’s all I’ll say about it. Except this, which I take from it: there is hope.
Big Medicine
Everything that happened from the moment I bent to pick up Louisa seems as if it was destined. That response of lifting her, tucking her under my arm, to carry her along with whatever else was slung over my shoulder, my purse, a bag of art supplies, a pad, maybe a painting I was working on—I’ve never traveled light, and I was going to art school then—was destined.
Yet I can see it took me a moment to understand what it was that Theo and I were passing through. Louisa, to our right, crouching—where had she come from? Why had she not run away? And the children, ignorant, almost innocent in their cruelty. Marshall Goldberg, who wrote the book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, who worked with governments to resolve conflict, said that cruelty is our need to connect gone awry.
“It has six toes!” one of the children had said, and now I see the expression on his face—he was pleading with me. Maybe the children’s cruelty was fear, confusion. But it was a collective, a mob, and a mob is dangerous. A flip of some switch, and human compassion is disabled. One person’s compassion—like Lincoln’s—could turn one more. And one more, and one more. Then, critical mass! And the miraculous capacity of humanity is suddenly freed.
As the memory fills out, I see that I did stop. I felt compassion for the children. I don’t know what I said, but I think it was gentle. Picking up the cat that would be our Louisa, stroking her, tucking her under my arm, as I did, Theo and I walking home, left the center of that circle of children empty. Maybe one child was affected—maybe one remembers.
Theo and I walked down 68th Drive in silent accord.
So it’s fitting that the coming of Louisa led to all that it led to. Three animal rescuers, my sister, Jo, my brother-in-law, Michael, and later, my daughter, Theo. Homes and safe harbor for strays without number. The moment, the coming of Louisa, shaped my family.
And here is something else I ponder:
Our Thomas fell ill. We must have taken him to a vet, likely to Manhattan and the Animal Medical Center there. That’s where we took our cats in those days. Thomas lay on our blue couch, listless, feverish, his eyes swollen closed. Theodora and I hovered over him; I must have been giving him antibiotics. Louisa lay beside him, not touching Thomas, but very near to him, keeping him company. She might have come and gone to eat, drink, use the litter box, then lay back down as she was—a kind of sentry. Two days passed this way. The house was heavy with sadness. Theo and I thought Thomas would die. We stroked him, spoke tenderly to him—“Thomas, we love you, please get well, we love you, Thomas…” We brought him food, water, treats. I don’t think he lifted his head. Why weren’t the antibiotics working?
On the second day, suddenly, Louisa seemed to have had enough. Or maybe she knew something. She got to her feet and struck at Thomas with her paw. She struck again. And again. Something remarkable was happening, and I held my breath. My daughter and I were spellbound. Louisa’s paw was curled, striking, striking, Thomas wincing. She struck at Thomas until he swiped back at her. Then Thomas stood up and stretched. He sneezed. Louisa hopped off the couch. Thomas followed. Now they were fighting, then playing. Thomas’s fever broke. His eyes looked normal by the end of the day, except for the haws, still covering their corners.
Of course I have never forgotten what I’d witnessed. I don’t know if Theo remembers, but I will ask her. Friendship, the depths of mystery. Shamanic medicine.
Dear Chip
You appeared on Halloween, thin and trembling, sheltering in the doorway of my shed. I was on my way somewhere, late as always. I dropped whatever I was holding, my purse, a bag of recycling, and went back inside to get you a plate of food and a cup of water. “Hello, sweet,” I said, “Hello, bayy-bee…” You ducked into the shed. I left the food and water in the red and yellow maple leaves piling between the shed and the steps to the porch.
I had that shed built when I first came here, to cover the ugly cinderblock wall that housed the concrete steps to the basement, covered by the old, rusted Bilko doors. Matthew the carpenter built it. Carl, who helped me then, whose passing I mourn, loved my odd house with me, called it charming. Matthew and Carl shaped this old hunting camp I’d inherited into a place I could live.
When I decided to build that shed, Carl opened his lot of salvaged wood to us and told Matthew and me to take anything we needed, no charge. I thought I’d put my garbage pails into that shed, protect my garbage from the bears who live in these woods. But the top was too heavy; I strained my back lifting it. Still, I was grateful that cinderblock wall was covered in Matthew’s work—a sculpture of odd pieces and an old shutter side door that swung on its hinges. Perfect for a cat. Matthew is an artist. But that shed sat empty, except for a few old plastic flowerpots, until you came. I was so grateful it was there to protect you. Winter was coming. Though you were afraid of me, you stayed. But was it you? I still don’t know. Chip. Chip, Chip.
The cold hit early. I watched for you. When you appeared again, trembling, I forgot my cane, my arthritic knees, bolted to the kitchen, opened a can of Oliver’s cat food, and filled a cup with water. Now I order cat food by the case. You put on weight.
The sun was still warm. Jonathan came to stack wood. You sat on the porch rail, your tail wrapped around your legs, and watched him. Jonathan was magical, yes, I knew that. I was not jealous, but intrigued. I’d suspected Jonathan had that mystery about him, and maybe you were his.
I noticed you had a pearly line across your chest. I’d never noticed that before. I thought I might name you Pearly, but it didn’t feel just right. Then one night, I saw you from the dining room window, crossing the porch, black against the blue black autumn night. “Shadow,’ I said out loud. “That’s your name.”
A friend brought a trap, to get you to a vet. You smelled the food and walked right in. The vet said you were already neutered and healthy. Now you were full of love, hungry for affection. I thought you were transformed.
My friend kept you in her shelter to prepare you for adoption. I was so happy for you; I couldn’t take in another cat. Not with my Oliver. Oliver’s litter habits extend to the whole house. He is the work of five cats, and I do it poorly. No. Another home was waiting for you.
Then there you were again, trembling by the shed! I raced into the house to feed you, again. It wasn’t Shadow, it was you. I didn’t know there were two! I called you Mr. Meowgi. The name popped up, as names in stories do. Now you had a brown diagonal line on your back; it looked like a wound that had healed. The fur around your eye was missing. I worried, kept you fed.
I didn’t see you for three days. Suddenly, there you were again. That brown diagonal gone, the fur around your eye grown back. Now it was your front paw—you limped. “This is a different cat!” I declared to the gray sky. “A third!” You spoke! It was a lovely call, a note like a piccolo. I asked the stars to heal your paw.
Oliver liked you. He mourned at the window, waiting to see you, moaning from deep in his throat, a yodeling sound. I’d never heard a cat cry before. He watched for you all day, slept on the table at the window. When you turned up for your bowl of food and cup of water, he pawed the window glass, his tail snapping. I called you Chip, the name rising from that same mysterious place.
Now it’s snowing. But we’ve put a thermal box where you can stay warm, under the porch. We’ve dug a path for you to the porch steps. I call “Chip! Chip!” and you answer with your sweet piccolo voice.
Mr. Meowgi has never returned here. I harbor the hope that someone took him in. But you come morning and evening.
Spring will come. And summer. What then? I ask the trees, and don’t get an answer.
For now, I am joyous to see you. Your fur has grown thick. You are not trembling. Your limp has disappeared. We look into each other’s eyes. I try to get a little closer, but you leave the porch until I am inside again, watching at the window with Oliver.
And I am relieved that you are nourishing yourself in this cold, cold winter.
Do you have or have you had cats? How would you describe your experience with them, or with other animal friends? Have you written about it? What did you think of Helena’s latest column? Share with us in the comments.
Helena Clare Pittman is a writer, painter, teacher, and author of 18 books for children. Her children’s classic, A Grain of Rice, has sold more than 280,000 copies and recently entered its second edition. She has taught creative writing at Hofstra University and the CUNY Queens College graduate program, as well as in schools, libraries, and workshops in New York City, Long Island, and upstate New York. She has also taught art at Parsons School of Design and SUNY and been the recipient of a New York State Council of the Arts “Arts in the Community” grant. Helena specializes in memoir and children’s writing, and she is available for generative writing sessions and private writing guidance. The next six-week writing session begins Tuesday, April 14.
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