I’ve been chewing on this title for sometime. I didn’t know how to approach it. I don’t like to write frivolous blogs unless I have something to say. I leave that to my Twitter nnnTheCode feed. Anyway, I’m sure that I’ve alluded to this topic before. So what was there to say, really? I dropped it.
In this morning’s early hours the ‘Universe’ gave me a gift. My heart is still swelling and joyous tears still form over it. I may have to stop writing from time to time to blow my nose and compose myself.
In my earlier posts, you may have read a tribute to my cat Patch that I inserted at the end of a blog, unrelated to his death. If no person on this planet ever loved me, I know that cat did . . . does.
Strangers loved Patch. People, young and old, males and females would come up to him when seeing him, exclaiming their love. One little boy, seeing him for the first time, said, ‘I just LOVE that cat!’ A neighbor said of Patch, for which I apologize, ‘He’s prettier than Brad Pitt.’ No doubt, she was referring to Patch’s blond coat and big blue eyes.
I knew that Patch was a special cat, who was more like a dog than a feline. He hated cat fights. In his ‘teenage years’ he’d hide under cars to avoid fights. That’s how he got the name I gave him, and the only one he ever recognized. I thought the grease spot was an anomaly. It was just a dried and fading gray grease patch. He wasn’t mine then. It took him about two years of persistence before I could finally take him in. He’d sit on my door step whining for hours, breaking my heart. He wasn’t mine! I couldn’t take him. Someone else owned him. I don’t steal other people’s pets. What was I to do? I offered to buy him. His indifferent ‘owner’ wouldn’t have it. Her boyfriend threatened to sue me for ‘alienating’ his affections when every time he came to my door, I’d return him. She moved away and left him. Now, he was mine! He was so persistent. He knew that he belonged to me, and me to him. I was the stupid one. It was like he kept saying, ‘Stupid! Don’t you recognize me?’
Indeed he belonged to me. When he finally became mine, I began to recognize his personality. His characteristics were exactly like my previous stray cat who died of feline leukemia. He’d died within six months of his owner giving him to me to avoid dealing with his death. His feline leukemia was a fact that she conveniently never mentioned.
Patch knew exactly where I lived. He’d found me from his previous life with me as Spader. When I ran into the woman who first owned Patch, she agreed that he must have been mine in another life of his.
Maturity gave Patch a sense of himself. He’d break up fights between other cats, or protect the virtue of females. Poor Patch, he was obviously fixed when months old and had no idea why he was protecting the females. Using his long body with his slow lion like swagger, he’d firmly walk between them, muscling males away as though confident of his own strength. The other males sensed it too and left quietly without incident. During the years his ‘owner’ neglected him, he learned to become a proficient hunter. This probably increased his self-confidence.
After his death, this stray cat whom I’d seen before Patch’s passing stood outside my bedroom window twice, each time letting out a single whine. I went outside to see what he wanted. He didn’t seem to know me from the next tall thing standing on two legs for whom he obviously had disdain. He had absolutely no use for me. What’s your problem cat? Okay, I’ll leave you food. This cat could smell a sucker. He’d come and go, making it clear that I wasn’t to be friendly and was to leave my mitts off him. What was this cat’s problem? Close to being feral I’d guessed. This cat didn’t seem to like the food I left for him. He seemed to have places that were on his route. I think my home was just on his way to wherever he made his journey each day.
One morning about 4:00 a.m. my motion light went on. Alvin, as I called the stray, was on top of my garbage can. Do you want food? I gave him some. Alvin returned from time to time. One night after eating he turned and sat on my porch step, laying exactly as Patch had done so often before.
I called to him, ‘Patch?!’ Alvin turned immediately, looking up at me with recognition, and began up the stairs exactly as Patch had done hundreds of times. After taking two steps, Alvin stopped, turned from me, and went on his way as though not knowing why or what he’d done.
I knew then that Patch had been taking this stray cat over to be with me. ‘Patch,’ I said to the darkness, ‘honey, leave this cat alone to live his own life.’ Alvin didn’t return for weeks. When he occasionally returns for food, he doesn’t seem to recognize me or care about me any more than some stranger. He eats and leaves. Oh, he once rubbed against my leg in gratitude. But was it Alvin? The cat Alvin definitely wants the best of both cat worlds: free food and to be left alone. I think my Patch leaves him alone now too.
My dearest friend, Holly told me shortly after Patch’s funeral half a dozen friends attended that she had dreams of Patch. She didn’t know why she had them. He could just come to me, why didn’t he? I’d heard a heart-wrenching whine from him shortly before we buried him in my backyard. I knew he was there. I knew his confused heart was aching.
In one of those dreams where we know we were right there, I was saying to my brother, ‘I’m sorry I had to be away. Where’s Patch?’
‘He’s with Hilde. He stays with her now when you’re gone.’
I didn’t seem to know who Hilde was, but knew right where she lived. I hightailed it straight to this small trailer. A woman with long brown hair came out. I went up to her and asked, ‘Are you Hilde?’
‘No.’ Turning, she pointed, ‘That’s her.’
I asked Hilde without taking a breath, ‘Where’s Patch?’
She pointed, ‘He’s right over there.’
Beneath a bush, sat my again hefty Patch. He was so skinny by the time I had to put him down or risk him having a horrible death. He looked up at me. I picked him up and held him close. He clung to me with his paw and claws digging into my shoulder trying not to let me go.
I awoke. After lying in bed and clinging to my memories of Patch, not wanting to lose them, I pieced the events together. I never knew the person that my brother called Hilde, who apparently kept Patch for me. However, I remembered a story my mother always told me about the moment I was born. My father wanted to name me Hilda Matilda because they grew up knowing this very nice woman named Hilda Matilda and he misguidedly thought her traits would rub off because of a name.
Still under the ether, my mother yelled, ‘You’re not doing that to an innocent child! Her name will be Barbara Jean!’ That was that.
It is funny how children piece things together. Every time my parents told that story, I guessed that I must not be nice since I didn’t get the name. As it turned out, however, I’m also nice. My mother was afraid people would nickname me Tilly. Tilly’s a pretty name. BrunHilda was another matter! Boy, did I dodge a bullet.
Nevertheless, I thought about this stranger, Hilde. As well, I remembered the woman whom I dismissed when first asking if she were Hilde. I’m very intense. My mother used to say that I never let grass grow under my feet, meaning I don’t dally. I thought that was a good trait. My mother had short hair all the years she lived. That woman was my mother. I was so anxious to be with my beloved Patch whom I loved and loved me that I passed right by my own mother. Rarely thinking of her, I didn’t recognize her because she didn’t – want or love me. I know my mother has made leaps and bounds on the other side. Perhaps, on the other side she now lives with her once friend, Hilda Matilda. My mother isn’t the same person she was and that’s probably why I didn’t recognize her.
I know Patch is in caring hands, not just with Hilde, but my mother. She really loves cats.
I’ve heard that when we are nearing death, we acclimate to the next world in dreams and visions. I’m not near there yet. Doctors called me the ‘walking dead’ two decades ago. What can I say? I’m Scots-Irish. We’re tough.
If we don’t fix this world, what will the next world be like? The dimensional Universe isn’t just for those who bravely experience it. It is for all. Even those who wouldn’t know it if it bit them in the ass from being programed with so much dogma. The dimensional world we inherit will be what we earn. If we fix this one as well ourselves while here, it’s bound to be easier for us when we get there.
… stay tuned …
