When you allow someone to enter your heart
And love them completely,
Extravagantly,
with no holds barred
You have to be ready for holes.
My heart is peppered with them, I’m surprised it can still hold anything, but gracefully it does.
One week after her Leotard-Chewbacca-Little-Man cat died at the grand old age of 11 months, Daughts went visiting a few litters of new born kittens she’d been told about at Pizza night.
The first two shared their crazy barnyard of freely ranging chickens,
several dogs and a small herd of goats with their Mamas, Aunts and a third Mum-in-waiting.
The huddle of tabby and black fur, barely a week old, blind as new born kittens, gave rise to oohs and ahhs and paroxysms of delight over their sheer cuteness.
“Free…to any home…” their owner said laughing, “you can have as many as you want!”
Daughts visits regularly and caught Mama, in the aftermath of a storm (supervised by Sis), moving them, one by one, from the safety of a roomy dog carrier under the car port to her perceived, safer refuge of a spot behind a tall fence.
A few days later their eyes opened revealing startling, cobalt orbs as short sighted as Mr. McGoo’s.
Daughts was delighted,
Now they are almost four weeks old and apart from the two black ones, one tabby looks very much like the other. Daughts can tell a few of them apart but for me,
“It’s like looking at a box of Mars bars and trying to decide which one to buy! Does it matter?”
It does to her, this one is Katniss…because she is the boldest of the eleven, always ready to come out and play.
The third litter of barnies belong to my occasional walking companion,
“Tell Malia to come visit my kittens too…” she said.
So she did.
There were four little ones, more robust,
easier to tell apart, two grey, one beige, one adorably smudged.
Mama has blue eyes so maybe this little one will keep her cerulean peepers.
“Mum’s a good hunter and has lived longer than any of my other working cats…” said my friend.
But Daughts doesn’t want her new kitten to be a working cat, she wants to love her, dance with her and introduce her to Titan, she wants to snuggle and kiss and spoil her inside the Barnlights apartment.
“They’re free,” said my friend, “you can have all four if you like, two inside, two in the barn…”
“Lol,” was Daughts’ text when she told me!
“I have to wait until the end of May,” she wailed, “I want one right now!”
Patience is a good thing especially with a broken heart,
those holes need time to heal just a little.
“At least they are nesting close enough for a cuddle every once in a while,” I comforted.
Dad, so the story goes, was a pure black Tom,
doing the rounds of the barn cats,
one dark night, deep in the cold of February.
He’ll be out of luck if tries to come-a-knocking at Footlights.
Only responsible cat owners live here.
I insist!
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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