Shortly after I wrote that, Missy let me touch her! Then a week or so before I was to leave, she rubbed up against my leg and let me pet her several times. We were best friends now. Mom and Dad knew my attachment and suggested I bring her home to Iowa to be a barn cat...
I was certain by now that she was a stray. She lived in the junk behind the sign painting business next door. But she wasn’t getting fed there. Seemingly overnight she became really thin and pitiful looking. And she begged for food every time I went outside. I think she ate her weight in Vegannaise and beans every day! Mister hadn’t shown up for about a week, so Missy ate her portion and his too.
The Saturday afternoon before I was to leave, I was visiting with a lady outside of my trailer when she stopped talking and said “Isn’t that your cat you’ve been feeding? It looks like she got hit by a car or something.” I turned around to see Missy come hobbling down the driveway. Her feet were curling up spasmodically making her stumble and fall over, and her eyes were rolling back in her head. She had been poisoned (probably with antifreeze)...
I tried to throw a towel over her, to catch her, with hopes of taking her to the vet; or at least try to pour some activated charcoal down her throat to maybe absorb the poison. But she was still a wild cat and out of her mind because of the poison. She managed to get away from me every time and finally escaped into the 8 inch culvert that went under the driveway.
The next morning I expected to find her dead in there, and dreaded having to pull her out. But she wasn’t there! My hopes of recovery were dashed, though, when I spotted her near the edge of the woods. She was much worse now... it was awful! I will spare you the details. How could anyone poison a cat that way, knowing the agony they go through? I cried all morning as I prepared to go to work, but crying couldn’t get rid of the feelings I had. I loved that cat. And I couldn’t do anything to help her in her pain.
When I got home that evening, Missy had moved again. I guessed she had drug herself into the woods. And the next morning my suspicions were confirmed by five vultures who were sitting on the roof of the shed and in the trees, stubbornly refusing to leave even though I walked right up to them and shouted at them to get out of there. Now I know why the Bible speaks of the birds in Revelation 19:17,18,21. It is a fitting symbol for finality, a sure sign of death, the end of any possibility of recovery.
Wednesday night we had a thunderstorm that knocked some limbs out of the trees. I had to drag one out of the road so I could leave that morning. As I drug it toward the cyclone fence holding in the neighbor’s junk, I heard a scrambling noise. My heart mourned as I realized it couldn’t be Missy, but leaped for joy when I saw three pairs of eyes peek out of their hiding places in the junk. Kittens! Of course! Missy was suddenly thin, she ate like a horse, as she was dying she was dragging herself back toward the junk pile.. because she had kittens!
That afternoon I took a lady with me to talk to the sign painting people who owned that junk behind the fence. When I asked if he knew anything about the cats that were hanging around there he shamelessly said “Yeah, we’ve been trying to get rid of those cats!” He must have seen the shock and anger in my face because he tried to cover for himself... I interrupted to ask if he knew that there were three kittens in his stuff back there. He said “Yeah, we were waiting until they were weaned before we got rid of the mother. They are about 7 weeks old now. Two orange ones and a black one. You can have them if you can catch them. Ha, ha, ha!” That was all I wanted to know, so I left.
Mom and Dad were more than willing to have three barn cats - especially Missy’s kittens... And my friends there, Melanie and Robert, just happened to have cat traps. The poor things had been orphans for five days now. The tuna in the traps was more than enough to lure them in. Their first messes in the cat litter were only grass, bark, and june bugs! It was Sabbath now and the tuna that Robert gave me for the traps was gone in the first 5 minutes; so the kittens had Vegannaise and spaghetti noodles for their Sabbath meals. : )
They were VERY wild kittens. And they were about to embark on a 13 hour drive to Iowa in a cat carrier given to me by other friends, Mr and Mrs McCommon. I ate breakfast that last Sabbath morning while reading goodbye cards. Mrs. Vivian Clark’s card had a verse in it about “Faith, Hope and Charity.” I looked over at three pair of big eyes staring at me from the cat traps and laughed. Perfect names! That was the first time I had laughed since Missy was poisoned. It made me think of the verse “I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.” Jeremiah 31:13
Frank Faith, Harold Hope, and Charles Charity (wouldn’t you know it they are all boys!) are growing big like their daddy, Mister. And they are tame now; they all come up to Mom and Dad for “lovin” whenever they see them outside. They love their new home in Iowa where they have free run of a barn full of mice. Mom and Dad said they have learned to climb the trees now, and they romp around like little kids out there. I can’t wait to get home and play with them again. I thank God for the three blessings that have comforted me and brought so much joy after such a sad situation. Someday all our mourning will be turned to joy. (Revelation 21:1-5)
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