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Reflections on an Unwanted Cat
I am Bean, I am smol, and I am fearless.
She is the third stray cat that has found its way to us. Our first, we found in a dumpster. The second, in a parking lot. But Bean decided on her own that this was the place she wanted to be. It made me wonder if mother cats have some instinct to look for a safe place for their babies. And in the manner of strays, she is obsessed with food, but has quickly gone from a kind of cautious gratitude for anything that was put in front of her to a feline pickiness. Sniff, turn up your nose, look at the provider as if to say, “Do you expect me to eat this?” and then grudgingly eat the food on offer.
It strikes me that Bean is, in the language of “Reproductive Rights,” an “unwanted” cat. “Unwanted” seems to be a way of saying, “Not worthy of being alive.” We didn’t want another cat, but that does not mean her life has no value. What else are you supposed to do you do when the universe hands you a small, vulnerable life?
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How wonderful that you have taken her in! I love cats. She looks like a sweetheart and I hope you have a long happy life with her!
You are supposed to do precisely what you did: open a place in your heart and your life. You will be glad you did.
Wow! This is exactly what happened to us when we were living in Utah. I think it was 2014 when Leona (that’s the name my granddaughter gave her, I called her Momcat) showed up on our porch with 3 kittens. They were still babies so I gather she dragged each one from their birth spot in the wooded area on our 2-1/2 acre lot. Then I had to catch them and take them to the vet since they were going to live outside and we didn’t want a repeat. Momcat got very attached to me and would sit on my lap but not any of the three others, they were feral except to eat. Momcat looked just like Bean.
When living in Phoenix, I would get adult cats showing up at my place, just because they always find me, no matter where I go. But when there was a big rain/wind storm, I would sometimes find small kittens on my patio afterward. They wouldn’t have a mother with them, I don’t know if the wind actually blew them to my place, or if they just got scared of the wind etc and just ran and ran until they got to me…
At my current place, the same thing happened again last month. After a rainy/windy day, found this at my front door:
No mother, no siblings… And thin enough to have been lost for at least a couple days previously.
After being kept inside for a few weeks to have put on some weight and finished eye development, outdoor living will be required. But I would never turn them away.
Just don’t put them on ebay, m’kay?
We will have to home the babycats but we have not considered that option.
Sometimes they just show up. What are ya gonna do? And then they worm their way in and take over your recliner.
That’s a beauty. I have pictures somewhere of a cat that used to come to my Phoenix place, looked like one of those velvet paintings with purple and stuff even in the coloring.
Just to be clear, I was making a joke referring to ebay as being a popular selling/trading place for the other kind of Beanie Babies…
You put them on your lap and listen to them purr, of course. Who could resist a purring kitty?
Not I, said the “Cat Staff”.
This story stands as a beautiful allegory.