Cats Who Have Owned Me
Because, let’s be clear about these relationships
His name was Blue and Mom said he was a Russian Blue; that’s all I remember.
I barely remember Gypsy, our black cat who got hit in the road. What I do remember about Gypsy was Mom and Daddy sitting me down to have The Death Talk (something I have kind of never really recovered from). Gypsy had had a litter before meeting her maker out on the curve of Weeden Road and we kept the one black kitten, George.
George was the runt with one leg twisted from being squashed into the corner of the womb by his four litter-mates. He had seven toes on every foot and could open closed doors by turning the knob. Back then we lived outside of town and he was a ferocious hunter, dragging dying rabbits back to the house or toying with a frantic mouse until it gave up and died. And since George had claimed me as his human, I took responsibility for trying to save his kills. That got me bitten more than once by frightened rodents.
Whatever other issues that came between my mother and I later in life (and there were many), she will always get credit for gently lifting each next bloody rabbit from my arms without ever giving me grief for ruining yet another set of clothes. She’d put the traumatized rabbit in a box by the fridge and tell me the next day that it was all…
