My Promise

The words didn’t part my mouth or breach my lips before they were something I lived by. While I hadn’t at this point, told someone besides myself, I had made a promise to look after Miss Kitty; I had made a promise to make sure that she had shelter, water and food. And I wasn’t going back on that word.

This promise was silent. It was one I communicated to Miss Kitty on a daily basis, as I refilled her food dish and made sure she had enough clean water. With every stroke I gave her, I wanted her to relax in the knowledge that she was no longer alone, and that she could give her daily care to a mature adult who was looking out for her.

I don’t know what it was that touched me about her so much. Just an average, run-of the mill grey tabby cat, her only unusual and pretty markings were the cream running around each eye and the vertical eye of striping on one side of her belly. Almost as if I had called her to me, at a time way back in January when I was thinking of taking care of an animal, she showed up, sitting in the sun on a chair underneath my window. From that moment on, I was hooked, feeling she was meant to be mine.

Her small feet made me think she was female, along with her expanding belly. I wanted her so badly to come inside and warm herself on carpet because I feared for her safety in freezing temperatures and dampness. She hooked me with her bold nature, the way she would inch herself inside my apartment and stick her neck out, popping her head up to look around furniture and room corners.

It wasn’t long before this average feral tabby was talking, meowing and demanding more attention from me. They weren’t cries for more food, as I knew she ‘d had her fill; they were cries for me. For hands to pet her and make her start purring.

She hooked me when she started getting desperate, her little face showing in the back sliding door, her petite feet fiercely banging on the glass as she stood on her high back hocks, trying to guilt me into opening the door and petting her.

I made a promise to this cat. I made a promise to the nice folks that did their best to have her fixed, instead of making me wait an extra two weeks for the next clinic. I told them, as I told her, silently, with petting and with the way I looked at her, that she was mine and I was hers; I would take care of her to best of my ability and I would make sure her basic needs were met. I pride myself on being a straight shooter, of meaning what I say, and this was one promise I meant. It’s one promise I mean. And it’s one promise that I have recently started saying out loud.

My hand lightly scratching her back, in my soft, high pitched voice, “Miss Kitty, you’re mine. And I’ll look after you and feed you and pet you, because you’re my cat now.”

The fact that in the end I am wiling, though not looking forward, to living alone so that I can keep her instead of my options of giving her to a barn or farm, or unthinkable to me, the Humane Society, shows two things. It shows that I have a compassionate and large heart, and it shows, that while I may not know myself as well as I should, or as well as I had thought, I know that animals need to be a part of my life.

So, Miss Kitty and I are together, and will be moving on with our lives at a new location.