There just was something about Turdopholus, the little kitten who, for whatever reason, came my way some seven years ago.
She seemed to take a liking to my front porch with the small planter.
And a liking to me.
She liked sleeping on the front porch by night and sitting there by day as I typed my columns for CityView publications. When she wasn’t napping and sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, you could find her on her hind legs just staring through the storm door at me, and she never blinked. Occasionally, she would paw at the door just to remind me, like I didn’t already know, she was there.
“Turdopholus, you need to go home,” I’d suggest. “I’m busy. I’ve got a deadline to meet.”
She was my next-door neighbor’s cat, but when she caught me sitting on the front porch steps or out in the yard, she’d jump the chain-link fence and head my way. She liked rubbing her head on my leather shoes and climbing up on my shoulder and purring in my ear.
She couldn’t seem to get enough of being around me.
When I walked around my front yard, she was right on my heels. When I took my trash out, she was there under my feet. When I cranked my automobile, she hopped on the hood and stared at me through the windshield.
She just was always there, and over the years, we bonded with one another.
“Bill, you had just as well accept it,” someone said, “this little cat has adopted you.”
She always seemed somewhat disappointed when I had somewhere to be.
“Stay out of the road, Turdopholus, and go home,” I would remind her. She’d watch me drive out of sight and then head home to Scott and Diane Tope’s home next door. But when I arrived back at my house, she was there.
She liked to race me to the front door. She let me get a step or two ahead, come to a stop, and glance back, and then she would dart in front of me again. She wouldn’t let me in the front door, and always was trying to find her way inside my house. More than once, she outsmarted me, and in she came.
She had a curiosity for every room–the den and the bedrooms most of all. She was one curious little feline.
‘Meow! Meow! Meow!’
Over the years, you become protective of these little creatures, and you do all you can to keep them safe and out of harm’s way, much like the late night when I heard her meowing for what seemed like a cry for help.
“Meow! Meow! Meow!” I stood and listened from the front porch.
Took my flashlight and surveyed the front yard, and she was nowhere to be found. She kept meowing until I looked up on the eve of the porch, and she was looking down with that “help me down from here” look in her anxious eyes.
Imagine, if you dare, a 76-year-old negotiating with a frightened cat about how to safely find her way down from a rooftop.
“Listen to me, you aggravating little …” our one-way conversation began on this chilly night. “You climbed up the dogwood tree by the side of the house to get up there. Now go back to the dogwood tree and shimmy down like you shimmied up.”
She survived the night, and so did I.
It dawned on me not so long ago that I hadn’t seen much of my little friend. She wasn’t greeting me or racing me to the front door. She wasn’t spending much time watching me type away at these weekly columns.
Diane Tope, my neighbor who had named her Katie, broke the sad news.
“Bill, Katie died,” she said. “She died in my arms. She was the sweetest cat. We buried her in the back yard, and she has a marker.”
Our beloved little cat left us on December 31.
Epilogue
She was the little gray cat with the black stripes, the green eyes, a curious nature, and an innocence. She liked the leather scent of my loafers. She liked sitting on the front porch by my side and keeping an eye on the birds and squirrels and the neighborhood.
Today, my hope is that Scott and Diane Pope’s Katie and my little friend Turdopholus is enjoying her new life on Rainbow Bridge with the canines and felines who brought we humans so much joy in our lives.
And something I know for sure is that the sweet little cat adopted me, chose to be a part of my life, and loved me, and I loved her back.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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