It’s Raining Cats… And Cats

May was a difficult month. Our family, extended family, and a dear friend experienced the loss of a loved one. This new long COVID body of mine hasn’t learned yet how to process grief, so I’ve experienced all kinds of symptoms: exhaustion, headaches, swelling, muscle and joint pain, aura migraines, blurred vision, and a strange rash that appeared on my belly and hung around for a few days. 

After learning a friend passed, my neighbor Patty, who lives kitty corner from us, called with what should have been exciting news. “Mama Kitty had six kittens. They are out in the backyard playing on the chairs and in the bushes,” she said.

This all began last August when a neighbor threatened to do “something with the feral cats”. I promised to solve the problem. So far, I have trapped 41 cats and kittens. All cats that I have returned to their colonies are spayed and neutered. The kittens and many of the cats went to good homes. Now, I was faced with trapping six kittens and Mama Kitty, the final cat to be spayed— a street-savvy girl who understands I present a threat and that live traps are inherently evil.

I’ll be right over.” I grabbed a jacket and headed out the door.

The kittens, like all kittens were darling, and for a moment I forgot the workload I was facing. I would first need to trap the litter and set up our small bathroom and a schedule that would include feeding, bathing, and treating the little darlings for fleas. I would also need to spend hours taking photos and posting on social media. With luck, people would respond, followed by interviewing prospective families in hopes of finding good homes for the babies. All other responsibilities, plans, and attention to my own animals would be put on hold until the kittens were adopted.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” Patty asked.

I smiled a weary smile. “They are,” I said.

Daisy and Delilah

That afternoon, I drove twenty minutes out to our airplane hangar and loaded my car with live traps and carriers. All of which my husband Ron had just stored in the hangar to give us some extra space in the garage. When I got home, I lugged the traps and several cans of moist cat food across the street and set up camp. The kittens were maybe six weeks old and were still nursing; never mind that Mama Kitty was trying her best to wean them.

Patty gave me access to her backyard, and we came up with a schedule so that until the kittens were old enough to be trapped, I would come over twice a day to set traps and feed all the cats in the colony, which included Mama Kitty and a litter that was born in January—the last litter I had spayed and neutered. And I cursed myself for not catching Mama Kitty before this new litter appeared.

All the while this was going on, my lower back was seizing daily, and my fingers swelled to the point I couldn’t pick up the cat carriers. My head throbbed, and I was waking up in the middle of the night worried about how best to trap the kittens. Because as often as I do this, each time the trap door slams shut, my heart hurts for the little beings who are scared half to death, and I have no way of communicating that in the end, I am doing what is best for them—I am giving them a chance at a better life, one that is off the streets where so much can happen to a kitty on its own.

But there is more to this story: It is the grace of God or the yin and yang in my life that helps me get out of bed in the morning no matter how deep the grief and pain cut.

A little boy orange tabby born in January visited me each day when I brought canned food over to Patty’s house. The others were quite feral, but this orange tabby brushed up against my leg and demanded to be pet when I filled food bowls. He had a strange way of tilting his head like he couldn’t quite make out my facial features. One day, he jumped into my lap and that was it. “He needs a home,” I told my husband.

“I hope you’re not thinking we can keep him,” Ron said. “We already have five cats.”

“I’ll find him a home,” I said.

Within a few days, Ron was calling him Güero, the name Patty had given him, and I was calling him Ju-Ju short for Orange Julius, the name my sister Kelli had suggested. It’s hard to give up something once it is named, and soon Ju-Ju was asleep in the cat tree surrounded by his new friends.

Ju-Ju has his eye on me.

At some point, I noticed that Ju-Ju’s right eye moved around inside the socket like a marble, and I wondered if the love he showed me was a cry for help. Did he know he couldn’t survive on the streets?

One of Ju-Ju’s littermates, a tiny, long-haired tortoiseshell started coming over to our house at sunup and sundown to eat with the five feral cats we have here in our yard. I assumed she heard her brother calling and was coming over to check on him. She begged to be held tightly against my chest, where her small bones felt too delicate to defend herself. She is currently living in with us and looking for a forever home. (I have named her Ruby).

Ruby

The kittens are finally old enough to be on their own, so I set two traps a few days ago during their evening feeding. The phone rang shortly after midnight. “There’s a kitten in one of the traps. She’s freaking out! All the cats are freaking out!” It was Ryan, Patty’s husband.

I slipped my feet into a pair of Crocs, grabbed my gardening gloves, and ran out into the night. By 1:00 am, the kitten was nestled in a vanity drawer in the bathroom with two of her littermates that I had trapped that morning. I fell into a fitful sleep as the kittens knocked things off shelves onto the floor where they careened across the tile until landing against the door with a thud. “Please God, help me help them,” I prayed.

The following day, a lovely woman from Tucson adopted one of the kittens. That night I slid down onto the cool tile in the bathroom as the remaining two babies skittered around my feet. I was drained and in so much pain, I had no idea how I was going to get up off the floor. It was then I surrendered and summoned all the angels in heaven, Mother Mary, and Saint Francis. “Please give me strength,” I prayed. “I can’t do this alone and need your help.”

I sat still for a long time before I had the energy to push myself up off the floor. In the kitchen, I checked my phone and found this message from a woman who had agreed to adopt a kitten: I will take both kittens if that’s okay with you.

Prayers answered, I wrote back: Honestly, it’s been a long time since I cried tears of joy. You are an angel.

I still have three kittens and Mama Kitty to trap, but I was reminded then that with God’s grace, this will all work out in the end.

Oh, how my garden grows!

During this kitten saga, I planted a garden. I swore I wouldn’t plant vegetables two years ago when we moved to town. “It’s too much work,” I said. “Why bother? We’re five minutes from the grocery store,” I said.

But it’s spring. The season of birth and rebirth. I come from a long line of hardworking Irish farmers. It’s in my DNA. I can’t help myself.

Our neighbor Kevin, who lives across the wash from us, has a greenhouse and invited me to come over and take some plants. Plunging my hands into rich soil helped me forget, if even for a few hours, about the constant, unrelenting pain. About my grief.

 The cuttings, seedlings, and the kittens remind me that life goes on. And like the gorgeous tomato plants that are blossoming, we all have something to give and that we will be missed when our season is over. There is a hole where those who recently passed once occupied, but slowly, new life is filling it.

* If you have room in your heart and in your home for one of the three remaining kittens or Ruby, I will be trapping this week, please contact me. I am happy to assist you through the process of bringing a feral cat into your home.

* More on the feral cats’ harrowing story can be found here on my blog: bethcolburnorozco.com

* If you are looking for a low cost spay/neuter clinic and live in southeast Arizona, this is worth the drive. It will save you hundreds of dollars: Dr. Kelly Surgical Unit

Ivy