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| Radar sporting his distinguished gray hair |
Radar
started out as a wild child, but by the time he turned five and our daughter
was born, he had mellowed into a patient, peaceful animal. Radar was really good with kids. He’d tolerate being used as a jungle gym by a
toddler, he wouldn’t complain when little kids grabbed his fur, and he’d run
for help anytime our daughter was distressed. By the time she was in first grade, Radar was
an old man—more gray than black, with failing hearing and eyesight.
My
daughter, an only child, operated under the assumption that if we
were not providing her with siblings, then we should at least have a multitude
of pets to love (her hundreds of stuffed animals weren’t cutting
it). We enjoyed a hamster, Piccalilly,
and a host of hermit crabs (fascinating but not cuddly), but none of them
squelched her desire for a cat. As I
said before, I grew up allergic to cats and assumed I still was, but hadn’t
actually held a cat to my face to make sure.
Leading
up to the fall of first grade (do all parents date events by what grade their
kids were in?), a neighbor family was going through a rough patch, often
leaving their cats outdoors to fend for themselves. We watched one from afar who was too skittish
to come near. As the weeks went by,
we figured out that grasshoppers were the main staple of her diet. She became bony thin with patchy hair and her
belly swelled with pregnancy, so we started leaving food out and she started to
trust us enough to sit nearby…and then…the neighbors moved across town and
before they came back for her, it was time to deliver the babies.
I
opened the back door one September afternoon and she raced in and went into
labor under the dining room table. (to be continued)
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