“Nature is bent on new beginning…”— Rosy Cole
For longtime readers of this column, this is the last time you will see my yellow cat in the illustrations. His name was Tip, and he is gone.
Long ago, my youngest son wrecked the car when he was bringing the little fluff-ball home for the first time. Youngest walked the half mile to the house, and then we went back out with him to assess the damage. As we stared in the window of the Buick, a small yellow head poked up out of a cardboard box in the front seat of the car and stared back at us.
“He’s the reason I wrecked,” my youngest said, pointing to the kitten. “He tried to climb out of the box. When I reached over to tuck him back in, I missed the turn and tipped the car into the ditch.”
Tip was a serious cat. If he liked you, he crawled into your lap and drooled while you scratched his ears. If he didn’t, he hissed and hid. Sometimes I would wake in the night to the wet touch of his nose against my cheek. Perhaps he was just checking to see if I was still alive.
Tip started losing weight two years ago, but testing never revealed the cause, and worming never fixed the problem. In spite of his rickety appearance he still made a morning foray out into the wetland beyond my front fence. He often returned with a mouse, which he deconstructed on my porch steps, leaving a green gallbladder and tail as evidence of his undiminished prowess.
Then, he began lying in front of the woodstove for whole days at a time, staring pensively into the flames. One warm morning he asked to go out and headed into the wetland. I thought it a good sign.
We never saw him again.
Somewhere out in the wetland, Tip is returning to the soil. The earth is taking him in to feed the cattails that will cradle redwings, the reeds that will sing in the wind, and the willows that will make room for possums at their roots. I will remember him each time cattail seed rises up from the marsh and drifts past on an autumn breeze.
We have another, younger cat named Zip. She spent the first year of her life zipping out of every open door. She is not a lap sitter or a drooler. When I finally installed a cat door to accommodate her high energy, she used it to bring us live presents: birds, frogs, mice. Fatter and more settled now, she sleeps at my feet and I am no longer startled by birds flying out from under the sofa.
I hope you will enjoy her as much as I do. She doesn’t touch her nose to my cheeks at night like Tip did, but she has made her own space in my heart.
Zip has taken up Tip’s old habit of hunting in the marsh and leaving dismantled presents on the front porch. One day, like him, she will also disappear to nourish the earth and all that it feeds. Until then, she will join me in my illustrations. I hope you will make her feel welcome.
The story above first appeared in our May / June 2022 issue.
