For the Love of Rescue Cats

I had lived on a farm most of my life, and we had cats. These cats were farm cats–indoor/outdoor cats, and even though we fed them, they could come and go as they pleased. Although they spent part of the days indoors, they spent afternoons outdoors, and nights were spent in the pumphouse, safe from predators. (My parents were funny about having animals inside the house overnight, but they had a safe, warm place to stay, out of the weather–both cats and dogs. The dogs had a doghouse inside the shed where the cars were locked up.) We lived near a country road where people would drive very fast. Most of our cats ended up being hit by cars. Every time it would break my heart. I begged my parents to let me keep the cats inside, but they would not hear of it. “Cats belonged outside,” they said. And that was that.

It was only after I was out on my own that the decision to have a cat and keep it inside would be mine and mine alone. My building manager had come to me with a dilemma. He had a unit in the building that had been vacated, and the tenants had two cats. Well, kittens, really–both were about six months old. Before they moved, they had “released” the cats by dropping them off the sixth-floor lanai onto the parking lot below. By sheer luck, neither had been injured, and the building manager had found them hiding under the cars. He had found a home for one of the cats, but the other he was having trouble placing, so he called me. I went with him to the empty apartment, only to hear pathetic little meows coming from behind the range. We put a board down behind the range and up climbed a beautiful little calico kitten. If it weren’t for the white on her, she would’ve been a tortoiseshell. She certainly had the torti attitude! She was renamed “Nani” and came to live with me.

Nani was a little firecracker. She was always getting into things, knocking things over and breaking things. But she also liked to drape herself over my shoulder and purr. I would go from absolute frustration to completely melting. The kitten in her was very active and she reveled in playing with anything and everything she could get her paws on. Things continued to get knocked over and broken, and I was at my wit’s end. Finally, in a fit of frustration, I put her in the pet carrier, took her to the Humane Society, and told them how her previous owners had abandoned her. They placed her on a hold, in case the former owners came back for her. I didn’t feel they had any right to her, but I didn’t think I could handle her at that point, and I went home. The guilt hit before I even got inside my door. I found I missed the destructive little hairball. I went back daily to visit her while she was on the hold, and that’s when another very shy cat would come sit on my lap. There weren’t too many people interested in her because it was hard for her to come out of her shell. She had been found wandering around an army base and must’ve been terrified. But she seemed to get along with Nani quite well. So as soon as the hold was up, I went back to get Nani and took Lani home at the same time. Nani and Lani soon became inseparable, and Lani seemed to keep Nani out of the majority of trouble. Lani was a few months older than Nani and eventually grew into a very large cat–a whopping eighteen pounds! Her name changed from Lani to Lani-Moo, a moniker she didn’t seem to mind at all. She was full of purrs, loved to sit on laps, would high-five for attention, and even sit up and beg for pets.

When I eventually moved from my tiny apartment to a larger unit, I moved most of my belongings, first, leaving the cats for last so they would not have to deal with the coming and going in the new unit. Nani didn’t want to go, so I took Lani-Moo first. When I came back for Nani, she fought like a little wildcat. I believe she thought I was going to drop her off the lanai, again, like her previous owners. When she realized I was taking her with me, she quickly settled down. But it was a valuable lesson that cats do remember trauma, even if they seem to have put it behind them. I moved again, after that, a year later, and she did not have another panic attack. I think she was able to realize that I was not going to leave her behind and that I would not drop her off the lanai.

Nani was with me for eleven years, until one day, just shy of her twelfth birthday, she stopped eating. Several vet visits later, she was diagnosed with a blocked gall bladder. We tried everything short of surgery, which I couldn’t afford at the time, though I would’ve moved heaven and earth to pay for it. The vet said she had a 50-50 chance of surviving the anesthesia even if I could come up with the funds, and even less of a chance that the surgery would be successful. I took her home and spent as much time with her as I could. Then, on Good Friday, she was unable to walk, and I knew it was time. She crossed the rainbow bridge draped across my shoulder in her favorite position. Lani-Moo was inconsolable. Her best friend was gone and nothing I could do would comfort her, or me for that matter.

Lani-Moo eventually got used to her friend not being there, but she never got over her being gone. It was only three short years later that Lani-Moo, dwindling to six pounds from her previous eighteen in her prime, would also cross the rainbow bridge due to kidney disease and join Nani. As heartbroken as I was, and am, I am comforted in knowing that they are together once again. It was for the love of these two rescue cats that kept me going all these years and sparked the desire to help other rescue cats.

It is my belief that every cat deserves a home, a safe place to sleep, and food to eat, along with some toys to play with and a friendly hand to scratch behind their ears. Cats seem independent, but they will worm their way into your heart and never let go.