A TALE OF TWO KITTIES

By Marion Kelley Bullock

Two cats live at my house. Sometimes this is good. Other times it feels like I’m in a combat zone. If I’m not careful, I get rammed by these two frantic felines racing through our small house. Anything that gets in their way is in mortal danger.

We didn’t start out to have two cats. We’ve always been a one-cat family. When our thirteen-year-old black and white Precious died from a heart attack, I was devastated. I called my daughter, the one who has multiple cats—I refuse to say how many—and she offered me one of her babies. I wasn’t ready to get another cat just yet, I said, bravely. But I sobbed that evening and the next, and maybe the next, because there was no cat sitting beside me in my recliner or lying beside me in my bed. No cat sat in my lap when I wrote at my computer. Say what you will, but I insist there’s something about the purring of my cat that inspires me.

Once again, my daughter mentioned that we could have one of her cats. Maybe I’d like to have sweet little Abbie, one of my favorites, she tempted. I said I might. That must have seemed like a yes, because she started working it out post haste. She could bring Abbie to us. At least, she’d meet us halfway. She lives about three hundred miles away. It seemed ridiculous to drive one-hundred-fifty miles when there were no doubt dozens of deserving cats right here in our own town. But that’s just what we did.

Abbie settled in nicely and we became a family. Then our twenty-two-year-old grandson, William, who had finished college and held a job in Lubbock, relocated to our little town. He became a prison correctional officer, while he and a friend started building a computer business. It seemed logical that he move in with us and save toward buying a house.

It seemed just as logical that his big cat, Bandit, move in, too. At least, we thought so. But Abbie disagreed. She laid her ears back, hissed, and spat every time Bandit got near her. For weeks, they skirted around each other. Abbie was afraid, because Bandit was invading her territory, William said.

One day, we noticed Abbie washing Bandit’s face, and the next thing we knew, he reciprocated. Without our realizing it, they had gradually become used to each other. They’d discovered there was room for both of them.

They still skirmish, chase each other and occasionally growl or hiss. But all in all, they’ve become pals. If they’re separated, they cry.

It struck me that humans are much the same. We need friends. But friendships take time to build. They don’t always spring full-blown into our lives. Sometimes they develop slowly—a smile here, a kind word there. Until, gradually, a warm, companionable closeness becomes an integral part of our lives. And we wonder how we ever lived without it.