Somebody's Cat

Somebody's Cat
By Donna Lowich


"Caz! There you are!" Walter strides across the room with his arms wide open, as if to embrace a long-lost friend.

Arching his feathery tail over his back, Casper responds by trotting casually into the house, our resident-visitor cat appears for yet another brief interlude. He now hangs out with us nearly every day, and sometimes several times a day. But there was a time when we hadn't seen him for several days, and Walter and I were getting worried. Well, I was, anyway. Walter maintains that Caz "doesn't abide by any rules. He'll show up when the mood strikes."

We eagerly await his arrival each day, because he brings a good-natured aura with him. "Know what?" I asked Walter, one day while we watched him leave. "The only word to describe him is ‘jaunty'." And jaunty, he is. His time as a stray has taught him to be careful outside but when he's inside, he likes to let his guard down for a while. When he lies down on the desk, tapping a pen in front of him brings out his playful nature. Thwap! He slaps the pen down with a stocky paw, opening his mouth in a playful attempt to bite the offending writing implement.

As he plays with the pen, I think back to that cold February night when I first spotted him.

I peered out the sliding-glass door and watched the snow as it piled up during the snowstorm. I looked away for a minute, but something caught my attention, and my eyes turned once again to the door. There, sitting between the shadows of the deck and the outdoor light was a most magical sight.

A whitish-looking cat sat by the door, not making a sound: a very ghostly sight, indeed. He sat there, just waiting to be noticed, his long hair tossed about in the cold February wind.

"Walter, look!" I called to my husband. "Come and see this beautiful cat!"

Walter came downstairs because he is the Feeder of the Cats at our house. Not only does he provide food for our own two cats, Lucky and Poker, but also for a number of strays that have stopped at our door ever since we moved into our house, more than twenty years ago.

"Think he'll come in?" asked Walter. "It's awfully cold out there."

"Maybe, but he probably won't stay. I'm sure he's outside by mistake. He is somebody's cat. I know it," I answered, secretly hoping the cat would come in and stay, anyway.

Walter opened the door wide enough to accommodate the cat, but the wind followed him in, cooling off the room very quickly. The cat trotted in several steps, and ran out again, waiting on the outside of the door, apparently hoping for food. Walter obliged him by placing some food on the snow-covered step nearby.

I picked up my counted cross-stitch project, started to work on it, and looked at the door again. Most of the small pile of food was gone and so was the cat. "I guess the cat went home," I disappointedly announced to Walter. "I just knew he belongs to somebody."

That was just the first of Casper's visits. Yes, he has a name now. Walter dubbed him with that name because he looked so white under the light when we first saw him, and because of his extremely friendly nature, which was made obvious from his second visit. He enters the room, always exuding a calm and "cool" aura, and looks around as if to say, "Hey, I'm here. The party's here!"

Meeting up with our resident cats, Cazzie even shows restraint when Lucky and Poker give him their very unwelcoming stares. He doesn't get angry or riled up at all. He stands there and looks at them: "Don't get your dander up, I'm not staying long."

Even more supernatural than his appearances at our door, are his disappearances. He seems to vanish once he leaves our house and turns the corner to walk down the driveway. We have tried to spot him from the front windows, but he never comes into view. Only once has Walter seen Cazzie in front of the house. He was coming home from work, and had stopped to get the mail. Cazzie was watching him, and came at a quick trot as soon as Walter said, "Cazzie! Come here, ol' buddy!" and followed Walter into the house for some food and a nap.

I often wonder why God would put a wonderful cat like Cazzie in the world without a warm house or a family to love him. Then, it occurred to me. Cazzie has all that.

We provide life's necessities for him, and in return, he has given us his love and companionship. But even more than that, he has given us the opportunity to share our home with him (however temporary each visit is!), and allows us to love and care for him. That is truly an amazing gift from a little cat that has nothing for himself, yet gives us everything. I was correct that first night: he is somebody's cat. He's our cat.

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