My First Cat

I don’t remember everything about my first cat. What I do remember is after the turtle died and was buried, some time later my parents told me that a man that Dad worked with had a momma-cat with kittens, and I could have one.

Oh Lordy, I was so excited! We got into the car and away we went. It’s funny, but I can still see in my minds’ eye the large green field with the transmission towers right behind the house where we were going. and there was the momma with her kittens. I picked the one I wanted, and named him Muffin. Of course I don’t have a picture of him. But many years later, I don’t remember when or where, this little ceramic cat caught my eye. It is exactly what my little Muffin looked liked, so of course I had to have it.

He knew he was loved from the git-go. He was all mine, even though everybody loved him. Back in those long-ago days neutering just wasn’t done unless there was a medical reason of some sort. He would go out at night, and every morning would be at my window to be let in for his breakfast.

Nothing finicky about his eating habits. He would eat anything put in his bowl. Peas, oatmeal, whatever was a people-food left-over. Back then, commercial cat food was just coming out onto the market. I think we fed him a brand called “Kitty Queen”, or something like that. One morning there wasn’t any cat food in the house for him, so Mom opened up a can of people tuna—that’s the only thing he turned up his nose at and walked away from with disgust. Silly boy.

We lived in a two-story house, and Mom would vacuum the floors once a week. Muffin would wait his turn on the stairs’ landing for Mom to use the vacuum hose on him. He loved it. He would roll and show his belly for it. Being a long-hair cat, this was a good thing because we didn’t have to constantly keep brushing him to help him shed his winter coat.

Mom says that my little sister and I used to dress him up in doll clothes. I don’t remember that, because I never liked dolls, so I didn’t have any. But, he would just do a cat-sigh and calmly let us do whatever we wanted.

I remember also a very bad day. To be honest, 2 bad days. The first was when we came home from church one Sunday. He was waiting for us at the front door, and one of his eyes was all bloody. Of course we never did know what happened. But Mom and Dad knew how important Muffin was to me, and probably to the whole family. So they put him in a box and took him to a vet. It was very expensive, the vet had to remove what was left of his eye and sew it up. He adapted quite well to being a one-eyed cat, but he would get a little jumpy/nervous if he couldn’t see what was coming at him on that side.

The very worst day, for me, was when we came home from a family vacation.  Of course my parents had made arrangements with another family member to take care of him and the house. But, he was gone. Never to be seen again. My wonderful little furry love of a cat-friend was not there waiting for me. He was only 3 years old, and I can still feel this pain when I remember it. To help me, I was told that he had left “to go look for me.” I waited for I don’t know how long for him to come back. Days, weeks, and probably months went by with no Muffin. It was years later that I finally was ready for another cat in my life.