Of Cats and Men
On reflection, it’s difficult to think of a useful function that Tiger and Snowy, our cats, performed around the house. Indeed, from the number of mutilated frogs and birds that they dumped on our kitchen floor over the years, our feline lodgers were something of a nuisance at times. The terrible two held tremendous sentimental value though. Despite being typically aloof and self-sufficient, they had a disarming knack of lavishing unconditional love on anyone offering food or a stroke.
Tiger was particularly ‘giving’, especially if Anne ever felt unwell or unloved. Even when our daughter was healthy and happy, the daft creature tolerated travel by pram and hammed the part of her surrogate child to perfection. Personally, I felt a stronger affinity to Snowy. She was shy and charming. Much more of a stay-at-home cat. If I ever needed a confidential chat, on the many days that I worked alone at home, she’d be there in her basket ready to listen.
As the days passed, I found it increasingly difficult to contemplate the impending separation from my furry friends. At times, I felt that parting was out of the question. I wanted them to come with us, but the local and Government vets that I spoke to told me that the export of older cats to Cyprus might prove disastrous. The mid-summer heat that they would encounter straight away would be awful for a start, and then there’d be the six months of expensive quarantine to endure when they returned to the UK. Accordingly, we took the difficult decision to leave them behind.
More guilt followed. If only I’d researched the facts about moving to Cyprus fully, including those concerning the export of our cats, for they were family members too. If only I’d given timely thought to the emotional consequences of not being able to take them with us. If only I’d predicted the trauma of finally parting company. If I had, I could have avoided so much mess, so much heartache, now and in the future.
During the days that remained before my departure, Allie and I did everything possible to find our cats a safe new home, one where they would enjoy plenty of love and affection. At first, we contacted our neighbours, to see if we could avoid changing the cats’ surroundings. When that line of inquiry closed, we asked our families and friends, to see if we could find another simple solution to what was becoming an increasingly complex and very worrying problem.
Having embarrassed our loved ones by obliging them to say ‘no’, I contacted the Cat Protection League in nearby towns. We’d taken Tiger and Snowy from one of their local offices as kittens, and the ladies I spoke to made entries in their registers, whilst they reassured me of a satisfactory outcome. However, one lady made the point that late spring was probably the worst time to relocate cats, partly because so many people were about to go on holiday. She also said that a glut of kittens that year, not to mention our preference for Tiger and Snowy being re-homed together, would affect their prospects.
As the clock ticked away to my departure, we heard nothing from the League. So, in desperation one day, I contacted the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to ask how they might be able to help us. A lady said that she definitely would take Tiger and Snowy as a last resort but went on to say that, if no one adopted them within a month, the Society might have to put them down. Allie and I understood the RSPCA’s position and were thankful the organisation would act as a ‘long stop’ solution, if all our efforts to find a new home failed.
Despite our promised openness, we decided to keep the lack of news from the Cat Protection League and the RSPCA’s position from Rob and Anne. Like Allie and I, our children knew that Tiger and Snowy’s only experience of cages was one unavoidable fortnight shortly after we’d adopted them. In the many years since, they’d enjoyed the total freedom of our neighbourhood.
Consequently, the thought of our furry friends’ captivity was bad enough. The thought of prospective owners pointing at them, whilst whispering furtively about their strengths and weaknesses was worse. The thought of their long term imprisonment, like falsely accused criminals, was simply awful. The thought of Tiger and Snowy’s death as innocents, once their chance of re-adoption had expired, was just too terrible to contemplate. Therefore, Allie and I redoubled our efforts to find a suitable home. After all, our new life in the sun might soon bring theirs’ to a premature end.
Just before my departure, another piece of good luck came our way. A cat-loving colleague said that she’d adopt Tiger and Snowy. The lady was about to move into a newly converted farmhouse in the Scottish Borders and our cats would have an idyllic existence roaming green fields, crossing babbling streams and climbing dry stone walls. This was truly marvellous news, but knowing that they were going to be looked after still didn’t salve my conscience. Deep down, I knew that I might never see my little friends again. I didn’t want that to happen, yet I’d made it happen, like so many other unforeseen and unwelcome consequences of our irresponsible actions.
So, there it was, in a few weeks’ time – long after my departure and shortly before hers - Allie would place our cats in their transit cages, for my brother to drive them five hours north. Watching Tiger and Snowy being driven away would be a heart-wrenching experience, I knew. Rob and Anne had grown up with them. Like their toys, our cats were integral parts of family life.
In fact, I knew all too well the sadness and recrimination that this parting would cause, and felt guilty that I would be two thousand miles away when it happened. I felt that I should have been there too, to suffer the pain and anguish first hand, since I had instigated it. My empathy stemmed from a similar moment of parting thirty years earlier.
That day, I watched from the lounge window of my parents’ house as my father drove away to start a new life with strangers. Just like Tiger and Snowy would be soon, I was a dazed innocent, suddenly faced by a very uncertain future. I felt helpless as events unfolded. With no control over what was happening to me, I wondered what unspeakable thing I had done to make my father leave.
I still have an indelible image in my mind of the exact moment that my father drove off. I can see the chrome bumper on the back of his dark blue car rounding the corner and disappearing from view. I can hear my mother’s dignified tears and my brothers’ stunned silence. Only a few minutes earlier, we’d all been playing one last family game together, until the time came for his selfish departure. Everything that had happened between the five of us over the past ten years of my life suddenly counted for nothing. In one instant of total and utter betrayal, that he’d clearly been planning for months, all the intimate moments that we’d shared together became worthless.
I will never forgive my father’s treachery, just as Tiger and Snowy will never forgive mine.
Tiger was particularly ‘giving’, especially if Anne ever felt unwell or unloved. Even when our daughter was healthy and happy, the daft creature tolerated travel by pram and hammed the part of her surrogate child to perfection. Personally, I felt a stronger affinity to Snowy. She was shy and charming. Much more of a stay-at-home cat. If I ever needed a confidential chat, on the many days that I worked alone at home, she’d be there in her basket ready to listen.
As the days passed, I found it increasingly difficult to contemplate the impending separation from my furry friends. At times, I felt that parting was out of the question. I wanted them to come with us, but the local and Government vets that I spoke to told me that the export of older cats to Cyprus might prove disastrous. The mid-summer heat that they would encounter straight away would be awful for a start, and then there’d be the six months of expensive quarantine to endure when they returned to the UK. Accordingly, we took the difficult decision to leave them behind.
More guilt followed. If only I’d researched the facts about moving to Cyprus fully, including those concerning the export of our cats, for they were family members too. If only I’d given timely thought to the emotional consequences of not being able to take them with us. If only I’d predicted the trauma of finally parting company. If I had, I could have avoided so much mess, so much heartache, now and in the future.
During the days that remained before my departure, Allie and I did everything possible to find our cats a safe new home, one where they would enjoy plenty of love and affection. At first, we contacted our neighbours, to see if we could avoid changing the cats’ surroundings. When that line of inquiry closed, we asked our families and friends, to see if we could find another simple solution to what was becoming an increasingly complex and very worrying problem.
Having embarrassed our loved ones by obliging them to say ‘no’, I contacted the Cat Protection League in nearby towns. We’d taken Tiger and Snowy from one of their local offices as kittens, and the ladies I spoke to made entries in their registers, whilst they reassured me of a satisfactory outcome. However, one lady made the point that late spring was probably the worst time to relocate cats, partly because so many people were about to go on holiday. She also said that a glut of kittens that year, not to mention our preference for Tiger and Snowy being re-homed together, would affect their prospects.
As the clock ticked away to my departure, we heard nothing from the League. So, in desperation one day, I contacted the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to ask how they might be able to help us. A lady said that she definitely would take Tiger and Snowy as a last resort but went on to say that, if no one adopted them within a month, the Society might have to put them down. Allie and I understood the RSPCA’s position and were thankful the organisation would act as a ‘long stop’ solution, if all our efforts to find a new home failed.
Despite our promised openness, we decided to keep the lack of news from the Cat Protection League and the RSPCA’s position from Rob and Anne. Like Allie and I, our children knew that Tiger and Snowy’s only experience of cages was one unavoidable fortnight shortly after we’d adopted them. In the many years since, they’d enjoyed the total freedom of our neighbourhood.
Consequently, the thought of our furry friends’ captivity was bad enough. The thought of prospective owners pointing at them, whilst whispering furtively about their strengths and weaknesses was worse. The thought of their long term imprisonment, like falsely accused criminals, was simply awful. The thought of Tiger and Snowy’s death as innocents, once their chance of re-adoption had expired, was just too terrible to contemplate. Therefore, Allie and I redoubled our efforts to find a suitable home. After all, our new life in the sun might soon bring theirs’ to a premature end.
Just before my departure, another piece of good luck came our way. A cat-loving colleague said that she’d adopt Tiger and Snowy. The lady was about to move into a newly converted farmhouse in the Scottish Borders and our cats would have an idyllic existence roaming green fields, crossing babbling streams and climbing dry stone walls. This was truly marvellous news, but knowing that they were going to be looked after still didn’t salve my conscience. Deep down, I knew that I might never see my little friends again. I didn’t want that to happen, yet I’d made it happen, like so many other unforeseen and unwelcome consequences of our irresponsible actions.
So, there it was, in a few weeks’ time – long after my departure and shortly before hers - Allie would place our cats in their transit cages, for my brother to drive them five hours north. Watching Tiger and Snowy being driven away would be a heart-wrenching experience, I knew. Rob and Anne had grown up with them. Like their toys, our cats were integral parts of family life.
In fact, I knew all too well the sadness and recrimination that this parting would cause, and felt guilty that I would be two thousand miles away when it happened. I felt that I should have been there too, to suffer the pain and anguish first hand, since I had instigated it. My empathy stemmed from a similar moment of parting thirty years earlier.
That day, I watched from the lounge window of my parents’ house as my father drove away to start a new life with strangers. Just like Tiger and Snowy would be soon, I was a dazed innocent, suddenly faced by a very uncertain future. I felt helpless as events unfolded. With no control over what was happening to me, I wondered what unspeakable thing I had done to make my father leave.
I still have an indelible image in my mind of the exact moment that my father drove off. I can see the chrome bumper on the back of his dark blue car rounding the corner and disappearing from view. I can hear my mother’s dignified tears and my brothers’ stunned silence. Only a few minutes earlier, we’d all been playing one last family game together, until the time came for his selfish departure. Everything that had happened between the five of us over the past ten years of my life suddenly counted for nothing. In one instant of total and utter betrayal, that he’d clearly been planning for months, all the intimate moments that we’d shared together became worthless.
I will never forgive my father’s treachery, just as Tiger and Snowy will never forgive mine.
posted by Hawkeye at 8:20 am
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