The eyes have it

Sorry again for the long delayed installment of this blog. As often happens, I’m too busy walking the walk to talk the talk.  😉

First the good news: the darling kittens of the previous post found a home – a really wonderful one. Just when I was ready to give up hope, hope tells me to take a chill pill and have patience because the universe has my back. And so it does, one more time. I shipped off Lizzie and Emma to empty nesters who are deliriously happy with their rowdy new adoptees, which gave me back my spare bedroom. At least momentarily.

The bad news is that I came back from vacation to FOUR different rescue situations needing attention. No kittens this time, but no fewer than eight adult cats who were found wandering, unclaimed and uncared-for. Six of the eight (four in one place, two in another) had been turned out and abandoned when their owners left. As if not heartbreaking enough, one situation was a woman who was taken away by the county when her dementia left her unable to care for herself, leaving her four cats to fend for themselves. <insert expletives here about people and agencies lacking in basic human and feline decency.>

Situation #3 was a young male who popped up begging at someone’s door, and situation #4 was right across the street from me: a scraggly older cat who showed up in a feeding spot. Because a kitten had been plucked from this same area while I was gone, I thought the smart thing to do would be grab this cat first in case it was the kitten’s very feral – and very fertile – mom. But as soon as I got this kitty into a dog crate in my garage, I could see I was way off on both counts.

His big blocky head told me he was a male. The name that came to me was Oscar. And all I had to do was look in Oscar’s eyes to tell he was not a feral, but yet another adult cat who was either abandoned by his owners or wandered too far and got lost. And judging by the look of him, he’s been out on his own for some time. Skinny, bony, and with patchy, unhealthy fur, this kitty is clearly a survivor. But rather than retreat into mistrust after his difficult life, Oscar is a bright spirit, with wide-open, hopeful eyes, and a ready purr. So ready that he in fact purred through his veterinary examination, during which he was pronounced maybe 15 years old (!), dehydrated and perhaps thyroid deficient, and put on heavy-duty antibiotics for his diarrhea. He is a leaky jalopy of a cat, but ready to be loved to renewal.

It’s impossible to do this work and not be acutely reminded of how connected we are to animals, and to everything. The critters who have always touched me the deepest are those who have been abandoned, knocked around and yet are still open to love. Do I see myself in them? I guess I do. Yes, it’s been (cough cough) a decade since I had a romantic involvement, but I do feel loved by family and friends. Still, is there any unattached person of a mature age who doesn’t want someone to look in their crows-nest-encircled eyes, see the beauty and promise, and give us at least a metaphorical home?

I see myself as strong and independent, but I guess I’m no different.

A week ago I put out the word about Oscar, asking if anyone recognizes him as their missing cat, but I’ve heard nothing. And just as things were looking bleak for his future and I feared having to return him to the field once his antibiotics were done because I have zero space for an aging kitty, his wonderful veterinarian has said she would take Oscar if no one claimed him. She saw it, too: the kindness and hope in his eyes. And once you see that, if you’re any kind of human being, you can’t turn away.