A late-summer friendship

 

My little white-furred visitor

Her friend and sometimes companion

 

I had seen her around the neighborhood since spring. Friendly and clearly someone’s cat, I deflected on feeding her. I didn’t want to feed someone else’s cat. Other times I rushed to the car – she would see me and trotted eagerly down the front walk. Could a cat identify a cat person? She certainly knew two cats dwelled inside my house. So did the Siamese and the diluted calico that also lived on the street. 

Sleeping through a mantis visit

In late August, she looked terrible. Nothing but skin and bones. Was she dying? I could no longer turn a blind eye. We caught eyes and I waved her over. She ate a full can of Friskies and slept it off in the shrubs. I checked repeatedly to make sure she still breathed. She held no grudge against me not feeding her sooner. 

Some new neighbors came by and told me they wanted to trap her. I also plotted bringing her to Wild Blue – they agreed on intake since she seemed in poor shape. But the neighbors came back a week later with the carrier I lent them. A man on the block claimed the cat, and she had been caught and had her chip run several times before. 

I would have had to return her if I got her to the cat rescue. The owner told the new neighbors she was sick – no one clarified what that meant or why a sick cat could just roam the neighborhood. That seemed completely irresponsible. 

I had to learn that the tough way - I used to let Percy out and he paid for it with a dog bit on his neck.  

On day she appeared to have some blood on her muzzle, and it sparked a memory of my friend’s cat that would scratch its face when it had inoperable cancer. That only happened a few times, a little dash of red on her muzzle. Who knows if it was ever her blood. Other than her skinny frame and the faint blood, I saw no obvious illness. 

Either way, this lady was a survivor. She felt like a pint-sized Grizzly 399 in my corner of Colorado Springs. But she eats ferociously. 

We developed a rhythm. I fed her, she groomed, then slept in the bushes near my front door. Sometimes she stops three times a day; sometimes I went for days without seeing her. I suspected days away coincided with her owner's schedule. But sometimes she arrived at an odd time on the weekend, like Sunday evening.  

Another neighborhood cat will finish her scraps. I didn’t sign on for feeding a second cat, but it is friendly and does not haze away the older cat. They are not bonded but seem agreeable with each other. She still tries to run into my house almost every time she visits. She got in a few times. Twice she was stopped by George. They briefly sniffed each other, and he hissed his disapproval, so little miss could not join the gang. 

While she did not develop an indoor belly from the extra food, her health seems sturdier than my initial impression suggested. I came to realize that her winter coat had rubbed off. All cats look terrible when their fur is short. She was a tube with legs and a bobble head. As the fur grew in, she looked better but still skinny. Her friend the dilute calico appeared to rarely miss a meal. I never gave the calico food on its own, but I know she swooped in and took whatever the white cat left on the plate. 

When the little white cat left my front porch, she strode away boldly. She goes down the alley or front walk with a certainty to her. Even with a car coming down the street, she doesn’t budge. 

But that only illustrated she could not hear anything. Deafness is common in white cats with blue eyes but runs lower in white cats with green eyes. Whether age or genetics, I could walk up and surprise. When she slept, she didn’t budget until I touched her. 

At first, I attributed her surprise to deep sleep, ignoring that cats don’t tend to sleep deeply. But she’s stone deaf. Other senses compensate, and that superior cat vision seems intact, so I don’t worry too much, since she does not cross the busy street and keeps roaming to a two-block area. 

Whenever when I heard her raspy warble, a warble that she cannot hear, I ran to the door. I didn’t want her walking away unfed. Even if she has few days ahead, I wanted the ones I could influence to be good ones. Months of having a friendly visitor on the front porch left me not wanting to think about the alternative. 

But our last visit likely happened. 

In early October, I went away for five days. In my absence, fall moved in, leaves turned and fell, the temperatures dropped. I spotted the cat that sometimes accompanied the little white cat, but she vanished. She hasn’t come back. 

I could fear the worst. Change in the weather leaves open the possibility that she stays closer to home when the seasons shift. The need for a warm spot to sleep outweighs easy mounds of wet food. 

I don’t if she will come around again. Still, anything tiny and white I see on my street gives me hope, if only for a moment.

Her last visit