A Feline Grace
MK Bashlor
Copyright 2011 MK Bashlor
Smashwords Edition
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Table of Contents
The Kitty and the Space Heater
Inventor of Cats (Her Religion)
About the Author
Introduction
I initially set out to write “A Feline Grace” as a means of capturing memories I could look back on after Nashy had passed away. I wondered if my thoughts about her, and the many ways she had reflected God to me could really be numerous enough to fill up a book. Therefore I took on this project as sort of a challenge to myself. The fact that I wanted so much to remember the nuances of my relationship with her continuously fueled the work. As I began to share the writings, I found that I had an audience in friends and cat lovers. So it is with great enthusiasm that I am sharing these reflections. It is my hope and prayer that magic will happen in the heart of the reader, as it has so often in my precious relationship with my Nashy, and in our relationship to and with the God who made us both.
Feeling the Color Blue
My eyes are shut. Her body lies across me. I feel the color blue. Her purr is rhythmic, like waves crashing against the shore on a soft steady day. She makes the sun shine in my heart. She is warmth and weight. Glued to me - pure love, like God’s, dependent by choice. We, ever connected by mutual agreement and never compulsion, rest together on a sweet Sunday summer day. Disturbed in a moment while I move to grab my book, she murmurs a complaint. She suddenly stands and nothing can bring her back to the previous state. She leaves meowing, as I remain in place, changed by her softness, delighting in the humor, her ability to be - the incredible truth of her.
My Nashy
When I walk in the door at night, at the end of a long day of work, she is the one I look for. Reminding me I am home, Nashville walks up to the door as I open it. She appears to have been thinking about me all day. After 6 years following the day she and I met, I am still astounded by simple facets of her cat-like character. Daily she reminds me there is a God. It is the unspoken things about her that mold my being, that mellow me, and make me in many ways as soft as she is. She is tranquil, and has an unmistakable faith in life and in me as well - teaching me that I am trustworthy. She somehow, in fact, secretly knows of all the good that is within me - wonderful things about me she reflects as facts, as if there were no jury, and no question in her tiny mind. She is sometimes silent and goes about her business. She is never driven toward compulsion as a remedy to nervousness, as a person might be. In what may otherwise be an empty and uneventful evening at home, she acts as though she had it made. She sits in one of her favorite spots, accepting the gifts presented to her - a papazon chair for her comfort, a clean beige carpet to take a bath on, and a double cat dish of her favorite crunchy food, always predictably in the same place for her. Indeed her whole world is there for her. Instinctively she knows her job is merely to receive. Daily I learn from her that I bless God when I recognize and receive from Him the gifts He has so freely given: A car to drive to work in, the glory of the flowers in the makeshift garden on my front porch, and a beautiful ever comforting kitty to lighten, amuse, and wondrously enhance my days as a single solitary person on a path I partly chose, and partly have had chosen for me.
What I Will Remember
I wonder what I will remember most about her, and what I’ll never forget. Yesterday, for example, she kissed me for the first time… well, sort of. I always hold her and love her. Sometimes we embrace a long time. She loves to hug me, and often such a hug can turn a barrage of meows into a gentle purr. In the morning yesterday, as she stood on top of me, the way she sometimes does just before I get up out of bed, she gently lifted her chin toward my face. She has no lips which makes a kiss rather humorous. But I knew what she was getting at. In the 7 ½ years she and I have been together, she has never done this! I couldn’t believe it. In fact, the thousands of times I have kissed her sweet little lipless fuzzy face, she appeared to be quite uncommitted, only tolerating it as she had been locked into an embrace and could not escape it. But yesterday she initiated this thing which I instilled in her! It was something reminiscent of our years together and the fact that she had heard, seen and known, even felt. In some small way Nashy had become me, reflected my soul, my creativity, my love. She showed me in a moment what she might recall had I passed on. She told me, “I see you. I know you. I know you like this.” As though a child, she repeated me, reflected me. She showed me beyond question, that in some small poignant way she knows me, really knows me.
And so, what I will remember when the time comes, is that fuzzy-face kiss in the morning. I will remember the way she meows for food until I take her and gently maneuver her toward the cat dishes which have been there all along, full of food, and she eats, just because I put her there. I will remember her basking in the sunshine, with love in her eyes, seemingly toward her creator. I will remember the way every seat and place of rest in the house seems to belong to her. I’ll remember her hugs, and the crazy evenings when I am lying on the floor watching TV and she comes racing by. I’ll remember holding her in my arms like a baby, holding her little kitty head close to my heart. I’ll remember back when we lived at Hickory Woods, how we found each other right outside my door. My first words to her were, “Who are you?” I immediately knew her name, since I had decided when I got a cat I would name him or her “Nashville.” She lived under the cars in the parking lot until one day I said to her, “You are too good a cat to be living under cars!” My roommate at the time finally conceded to allow me to keep her in my room, though she was allergic to cats. And since Nashy had come from outside anyway, I let her stay out all day, as she knew the area so well, and never failed to come home to me. She had a collar on when I found her, but no one else claimed her, and soon everyone else knew her name, and said “Hi Nashville” when they saw her walking around outside or hanging out with me as I sat out in front of our apartments and talked to friendly neighbors.
After my roommate moved out, I relocated to an apartment in the same complex where I lived alone with Nashy. Nashy still stayed out a lot, and simply had to learn that we lived in another location, and of course she now had free reign of our apartment. She stayed out all day while I was at work. She used to hear my car coming and ran to meet me when I got out of the car to walk into the apartment. Once I recall she ran the full distance of the Tennis Courts, anxiously meowing all the way, just to greet me when I arrived home. Another time, upon getting out of my car after work, I was politely confronted by a large black man who said, “Is that your cat?” “Yes” I replied proudly. “That cat followed your car all the way down to the mailboxes.” The mailboxes were where I parked each day, and Nashville had heard my car drive into the apartments and ran after it from the moment I entered the complex (about a block or so). When she met me at my car, on almost a daily basis, she would walk a little ahead or behind me, and go right up to the outside door which led to the stairs leading to our apartment on the 3rd floor. After I opened the door for her, she would race up the stairs to the first landing and wait for me. When I got there, she then ran up to the second landing and waited. Finally she went up the final set of stairs and walked right up to our door, where I predictably let her in.
For seven years, Nashy has been the best part about coming home. Like a good wife, she actually greets me at the door now each evening when I come in. After I open the door, she quickly turns around and walks away. I usually say something like, “Oh the place looks nice. Did you clean?” Nashy responds as she always does, like the perfect “Straight-guy,” never laughing at my jokes.
Her Face
She is such a beautiful little cat. Everyone who sees her seems to agree. So often in our life together, it is just Nashy and me. She has adapted to my lifestyle which she seems to love, reminding me gently it is not so bad to be alone. She usually responds to others as though they were intruders, and if a neighbor, child, or veterinarian should approach, she clutches my neck like a little monkey. Her arms stretch out, and she clings to me, teaching me I am the safest place in the world for her. I am someone who will always protect, always nurture, always keep her from harm. Perhaps I am an extension of her, not just the person she lives with. I am her calling in life, serendipitously placed beside her. She knows she is meant to be with me. For whatever reason, God in His omniscience has given her to me. She never questions any of this, as I do, and it somehow makes her more serene.
Her face is so beautiful. Her colors are indescribable, not brown really, more like dark grey, with splashes of tan. She has splotches of white on her face, in no particular designated arrangement. The pure white extends to her tummy, her legs, and the tips of her front paws. The stripe of white fur above her nose resembles an arrow which I have decided points upward toward God. Her eyes are dark, surrounded in gold, circled in a permanent black eye-liner all around, as if applied by a creative make-up artist from another universe. Her golden cheeks appear a little puffy with a short protruding mouth, and sweet little nose, concluding in a very cute kitty cat visage, unplanned by the wearer of this everyday ensemble. Once a lady at the pet store where I took Nashy felt the same inclination as I often have, and gently tapped her on her sweet pink little nose as she pulled away, not understanding the implications of the gesture.
The Creation that Serves Her