It has been said that as a child grows older sometimes mama refuses to believe her baby is growing up. That little one is no longer as dependent on her love and care as it once was.
Fathers can feel that way too.
I was the first born in my family of the six children (three boys and three girls). Since I was the eldest, and papa was away so much, I became a kind of substitute father to my younger brothers and sisters. Even as they grew older it was that way.
When I lost my dear wife, Jeannette, after 50 years of a good marriage. I became a widower living alone. I adopted a cat to keep me company.
First there was Calico. After Calico bit the dust; the result of her decision to roam too long in the world outside, despite the shots and flea powder I lavished on her, Calico got sick. Even the best ministrations of the excellent pet doctor in downtown Lakeport could not save her. I buried Calico in the backyard under the big oak tree, said a proper goodbye to my friend and went to the SPCA for another cat.
I found one; a fur ball that nobody else wanted. I named her Cleo. She was still a kitten and, when I put my hand in the cage to pet her, she came to me and said hello. Naturally, that sealed the deal. I took her home.
We got on well together and, being a kitten, Cleo depended on me for everything. She was securely tied to my apron strings. Although I do not wear an apron, like a my sainted mother, I hated to see her grow up and leave me for her strange cat friends. I combed her fur, fed her and taught her to be toilet trained. I let her look through the glass of the sliding glass door of my bedroom where I do all my writing.
The glass looks out on the valley and Cleo was satisfied to be a spectator, safe from the outdoor storms and trials of life for a cat.
She grew older. Cleo became a teenager. She began to feel her oats and I gave her space. When she asked to go outside and play, I took care not to trim her claws so, if attacked, she could give as good as she got. She always came back when I called her and at night she always slept at the foot of my bed.
She was what a good cat should be.
Then things changed. Ever so subtly at first, and then in more noticeable ways, she stretched the envelope of her world. She asked to go out and play more and more often. It came to the point Cleo spent more time outside than in my room sleeping, visiting, or, as interesting that occupation should have been for any cat, watching me type my stories. She played outside all the time. It got to the point three or four times a day Cleo would jump to my computer table while I was working and ask me, “Please let me go out to play.”
I always agreed. What’s a parent to do when a kitten grows up? Besides, being a teenager, I figured Cleo would settle down as she grew into adulthood.
When she wanted some kitty kibbles or decided she would come in and visit me a spell, she was always at the door with her nose in the crack to let me know it was time for me to let her in.
The pace quickened. Six and seven times a day it was, “Let me out to play,” or “Let me in for my kitty kibble snack so I can go out and play some more.”
She even stayed out all night once. I was sure the coyotes, that party every night on the hill across the valley, would eat her.
They didn’t. After I had a restless night of worry I heard her at the door at 3 a.m. whining to come home. Naturally I let her in. Now she hardly stays around long enough to visit except to let me comb the burrs from her fur and allow me to give her a pat or two. Cleo has found friends of her own outside.
She still comes in at night but Cleo is no longer tied to my apron strings, so to speak. She is with her friends.
Fortunately she has been fixed so she won’t get into that sort of trouble.
My hope and expectation is that when the rains come this winter and it is freezing outside Cleo will smarten up. She may realize at last upon which side her bread is buttered. My apron strings may once again tie her to me a little while longer. Cleo will need me and be my cat again.
(P.S. She has and she does.)
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
