While suffering through our first bout of Covid this May, I saw a cat rescue's photo of a cream-colored kitten and began babbling to Mike, "LOOK at her! Oh my goodness! If she were mine, I'd hold her on my shoulder all day long! I'd call her 'Cubby' and just cuddle her all her day!" She was blind in one eye and missing the other. I wanted her as soon as I saw her. I had really actually thought, "That's my cat" as soon as I saw her, but I said nothing to Mike about wanting to apply to adopt her. We hadn't even discussed getting another cat in the soon-to-be-two-years since Stuffed's death. Having a new one somehow didn't even seem like a possibility.
A month passed and I hadn't been able to stop thinking about this fuzzy little soul. Was she scared? Was she lonely? Did people cuddle her? She was blind: Was she safe? She was just a baby! On the morning of June 23rd, I woke from a dream in which we'd adopted Cubby. (She was "Cubby" to me from the start; The rescue called her something else.) The plot of the dream was lost to me upon waking, but Cubby had been ours. This was the two-year anniversary of Stuffed's death, and I took it as a sign that we were meant to go for it. More than a month had passed since I'd seen the rescue's last update on her, so it seemed likely that she'd already been adopted, but I emailed the group anyway to tell them we wanted her. And I took it on faith that we would somehow be the ones to get her, just like in my dream, and without waiting to hear otherwise, I ordered two aqua gingham collars--one kitten-size and one for her to grow into--a red heart-shape name tag and a special needs tag that stated she was blind, I began reading articles and a couple books about taking care of blind cats, and I ordered a picture of her to keep beside Stuffed's on the table between Mike's and my chairs. I went ahead and paid the adoption fee and bought kitten food and a few catnip mice to start off her toy collection here. And I waited to hear back from the rescue. And waited. And waited. I babbled even more feverishly to Mike about this kitten, I prayed about it, I texted him about it while he was at work, I wrote in my journal about it, I willed an email to come or the phone to ring and waited some more. At one point while Mike listened and looked at me pityingly, I started crying halfway through saying, "It's okay, I know I'm not going to be the one who gets her," surprising even myself with how gutted I felt at the thought. But almost simultaneously, I would think, "How could this NOT be my cat??? Look at her!" It was every bit as odd as it seems.
The rescue didn't list a phone number, so I emailed twice more the next week but still got no response. I dreamed of Cubby a second time while waiting to hear back, however: In the dream, we had adopted her and I was carrying her into the apartment, but she peed on my shoulder before I could get her over to the litter box and Mike and I were laughing about it. 'Still no word from the rescue, though, and in desperation, I decided to write them a letter and to send it via Overnight Delivery. In three pink legal pad pages, I pleaded my case for our adopting this kitten, feeling decidedly desperate but compelled to do so, and I sealed the letter with a drawing of Cubby. Despite being twenty-seven dollars poorer after paying the next-day-delivery postage and uncharacteristically late for work to boot, I felt a sense of peace as I left the post office: Whatever was meant to happen would happen. I had fought to be gifted with her, but the rescue would obviously choose the person they deemed best for her, and if all I wanted was what was best for her, then it simply followed that whatever they decided was fine. Blind baby Cubby would be in good hands.
On my day off the next day, a woman from the rescue group called and said she'd just received my letter and "I'm so sorry--I thought you knew the cat was yours?!" She had thought someone else from the rescue had already contacted me, and those volunteers all thought that she had. I was already crying while she explained this and mouthed to Mike, "We got her!" so he wouldn't think they were tears of disappointment. The woman explained that the group had received so much interest in this kitten and other people had applied for her but that they had "been extra picky" and had been waiting to find the right person and home for her. After a frantic week of blind-kitten-proofing the apartment--something I'd read online had recommended covering corners with bubble-wrap so a blind cat could explore and form a mental map of a space without walking into anything sharp-edged in the process, so soon enough, I had taped bubble-wrap around all our chair legs, table legs, wall corners, etc.--and buying new beds and kitten-specific things like a stuffed cat that contained both a heating pack and a battery-operated heartbeat, Mike and I made the eighty-mile trip to collect Cubby. At this point, we had seen a video of her and a few more photos, so we were stunned to see how much smaller she appeared in-person. 'Not even two pounds yet, she kept her eye squinched shut but snuggled onto our chests and shoulders as we took turns holding her. 'Love, love, love. ♥
Halfway home, Mike driving while I kept an eye on Cubby in the backseat, we parked for awhile to give her a break from her carrier. As I picked her up to cuddle her, she peed on my shoulder just like in my dream. I carefully cleaned her with a wet wipe and held her awhile longer after I dried her, but when I put her back into her carrier, the innocent-looking little kitten who had pre-bath been facing me the entire trip now turned her back on me and sat facing the car door instead. Ha! 'The furry cold shoulder, we call it. It was the first sign of feistiness in her, and we laughed about it the rest of the way home. (Mike from the front seat: "She turn around yet?" - Val: "Noooope.") Once we got her home, I sat on the floor with her and opened the carrier to let her begin exploring, but instead, Cubby scrambled up onto my shoulder to sleep. We sat on the floor that way for forty minutes--"Getting caught in a Cubby Trap," Mike and I began to refer to it--until she was ready to scout out her new surroundings. "This cat!" as Mike would say. 'Such a love.
So began a summer of what a coworker would affectionately refer to as "Cubby Chaos." Cubby would sit so still and patiently as I wiped her eye and missing eye area every morning, she would gobble down her food, and then: Off to the races! My memory of July is a haze of blearily trying to get Cubby onto a sleep schedule--"Now you know what it's like having a newborn," Mom remarked after one of my been-awake-since-4 a.m. reports--snuggling her on my shoulder and chest--she would lick my face and pat-pat-pat at it with her warm little paw pads as if reading it in kitten Braille--repeatedly running to reach her as she attempted to walk across the air between the arm of Mike's recliner to the arm of my wing chair like Wile E. Coyote nonchalantly stepping off a cliff, weighing her daily to make sure she was gaining weight--and she was! She went from not-quite-two-pounds to almost-five this summer--rescuing her from the tops of chair-backs, bookshelves, and cat trees--she could climb up but couldn't get back down, whether because she was blind and missing the depth perception or just because she was young and little and hadn't yet figured it out, I don't know--laughing as she chased her pink ball around the apartment--we'd hear its jingle and turn to see her marching past with it in her mouth--and texting updates back and forth with Mike. We had rearranged our work schedules before adopting her so that one of us would always be home with her, at least until she was older and able to be alone safely. Now that the sleep-deprivation and constant worrying have passed, I look at the pictures and reread the texts we sent each other this summer and laugh. We only ever knew Stuffed as an adult cat, so this little kitten's energy and antics were eye-opening for us.
And our favorite, a live-action shot from my attempted afternoon nap with her in bed beside me:
By mid-September, Cubby had settled down some. She would either sleep through the night in bed with us or stay out of trouble if she moved to one of her beds in the living room. Always a good eater, she weighed almost three pounds more than she had when we'd adopted her. She was still smaller than she would have been had she had a better start in life--she was found in a tree stump when only a few weeks old after her mother had been hit by a car, and she'd been bottle-fed after that--but she had noticeably more heft to her now when we picked her up and looked more like a tiny cat than a very young kitten. She seemed more than comfortable in her new home and had a bunch of favorite spots and daily routines now. She continued to chase her pink ball and carry both it and a rainbow-striped long-tailed mouse around in her mouth as she ran around. She wrestled a stuffed Grumpy Cat and cuddled up with "Mama Cat," her heartbeat cat, during naps. Her barely-audible meow that we'd gotten used to was now a baby-dinosaur-squawking kind of sound as she got more practiced at using her voice. Her Siamese-mix coloring was coming in darker, so her ears were standing out more against her cream-colored fur, making her even more adorable. As I texted Mom, it was like I had Holly Hobbie's cat. :)
Almost three months later, I just ache to feel Cubby on my shoulder again. I miss the warm heft of her soft little body against my shoulder. I miss the way she tilted her head at us. I miss singing to her about how ♪ "I once caught a Cubby-Cat. I caught her in my Cubby trap. And when you catch a Cubby Cat, you cuddle her on your shoulder and lap." ♫ I miss watching her nuzzling into Mike's neck, rubbing her face into his beard. I miss watching her romp around with her ball in her mouth. I miss getting home from work late at night and having her run out from the bedroom toward me. I miss holding her paw when we'd first go to bed so she'd know I was right there. I miss her in her entirety. It will always bother me that I'll never know how big she would have gotten as an adult cat or learn if she would have eventually jumped down from the perches, trees, and chairs on her own. She is the closest I'll ever get to having a baby. The grief is literally breathtaking sometimes, and I force myself to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out until the overwhelming wave rolls out again. I was heartbroken after Stuffed died, but at twenty-one, he had put in his time, and we had been with him year after year as he became an elderly cat. Cubby was maybe six months old when she died, and we only had twelve weeks total with her. Just getting her bigger, stronger, and more confident in her surroundings had been such a mission for me from the very beginning, I still feel lost without it. The day before Cubby died, I had been reading about Robert Kennedy's assassination and how young women who worked in one of his campaign offices the summer of 1968 were witnessed silently taking down its windows' "Kennedy for President" posters and banners. I've remembered that image a lot since October 2nd. I had kept a baby book of Cubby's medical records, daily weights, etc. I'd been so proud of her. (I'll always be so proud of her.) How brave she was! 'Blind and hungry and likely expecting her mother to return to her and the rest of her siblings in that tree stump this spring, not being able to see the face of the person who pulled her out of it or the faces of those who transported her or handled her or bottle-fed her or held her in the months before we got her. 'Having to trust that these new voices and hands and shoulders in July would be gentle and good to her too and this new home was a safe place. She had to take her entire world and lifetime on faith. And she did it smilingly! One of the books about blind cats I'd read before adopting her was a memoir by Gwen Cooper of her time with her beloved "Homer." After he died, she stated that she had known within five minutes of meeting him that he had already made her want to be a better person, and I had felt the same about Cubby before I'd even been approved to adopt her. I think about that a lot too. I think about how as May began, I didn't even know yet that this sweet little soul existed, and how just days later, my heart and my life had been changed by her. And here I am now, in the end-of-year stillness, sorting it all out. Monday or Tuesday of the week before Cubby died, I had woken from a dream in tears. In it, Mike and I were sitting with a female vet--in real life, Cubby's regular vet had been a man--who was asking us how old Cubby was. "'Between four-five months," I'd answered. The vet said something else I've never remembered, then: "I'm sorry. You only have one more week with her." I woke up crying at that point and told Mike I'd had a bad dream, but I hadn't even thought of it again until after Cubby had died. It all really played out as it was destined to, it seems, from connecting with her the first time I saw her picture to knowing instantly that she would be "Cubby" and not the name the rescue group had given her. . .the first two dreams I'd had about her before we'd even been approved to adopt her. . . .I will ponder it all my earthly days, the wonder of how this precious blind baby came into my life and the part she played in it.
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