I think a miracle just happened! It did not seem like a very miraculous moment at the time. We were sitting at our dining room table playing settlers of catan with a few friends (my husband and I are a little obsessed with this game, any other fans out there?) Jaxon (our male cat) was outside in our backyard, sitting on top of our firepit (unlit of course).
We heard a loud crash outside and we all jumped a little, “what was that?” we all wondered. My husband jumped up to find out. I love my husband’s protector nature! As he opened the door that leads from our dining room to the backyard, he saw the neighbor’s pitbull lunge from across our backyard towards Jaxon. My husband yelled and was about to grab a lawn stake to use in self defense, when the pit bull decided to leave the scene. Rene brought a very scared kitty inside, as we all stared in horror. He set Jaxon down, and Jaxon kept lunging for the door with a “let me at him!” attitude. We also had to grab Sparta (our female cat) who now wanted to go outside to check on all the commotion. Apparently she had never heard the expression “curiosity killed the cat!”
We found that Jaxon had some hair missing and one of his paws was bleeding. My husband went outside to investigate the crime scene and left me and my friend with instructions to dip Jaxon’s paw in cornmeal to stop the bleeding.
My husband just knows these things…cat’s paw bleeding..dip it in cornmeal….oh of course why didn’t I think of that. I had been wondering if a band aid would work on his kitty paw.
While we dipped Jaxson’s paw in cornmeal (he did not like it!), my husband found that the pit bull had broken through our fence and another neighbor’s fence to get through to our backyard. My husband called the cops and unfortunately there wasn’t anything they could do about the situation because the pit bull hadn’t hurt a person.
Some peculiar thoughts began to race through my brain, “pets are people too!” and “how dare the cops not be able to stand up for a member of our family!” I was absolutely overwhelmed with how protective I felt over Jaxon and how outraged I was at this pitbull.
My surprise grew the next day when Jaxon was just not acting like himself. When I came out of our bedroom in the morning instead of him meowing incessantly and head butting my leg, while circling around me and following me all over the house, I found him laying on the couch. He barely lifted his head when I walked into the living room and looked at me with a glazed expression. He looked so mournful and pitiful. My compassion welled further when we found him after church, laying on top of our kitchen cabinets, the highest point in our house, just staring at the back door with a mix of horrific paranoia. He laid up there for hours on end, sometimes curling up to sleep and other times hanging his head pitifully off the end staring at the door then looking at us as if to say “do you know what I have been through?” I felt like my child had come home from school with a black eye and told me that the classroom bully had punched them for no reason.
It was as if Jaxon’s kitty innocence was gone, he had believed that life was full of cat food, cat nip, long naps in the sun and following around his “Dad and StepMom” meowing for attention. But that night he realized that the world was full of enemies, namely pitbulls that wanted to kill him, and I could see the weight of the realization upon him. Like the day I realized all adults weren’t trustworthy, like the day my elementary school friends decided to avoid me on the playground for no reason I could understand. It was the day that innocence died.
It was also the day that I realized I may have begun this journey as a begrudging kitty step mom, but I really loved these cats and I would have been absolutely devastated if one of them had gotten hurt. I also wanted to protect them from the dangers of the world.
I felt my heart changing, I felt a small miracle leap forth, maybe I was made to be a kitty stepmom.
Maybe, just maybe we can make this work…..
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