This is my symphony

Ramona Quimby was good kitty.

Mind you, she wasn’t even technically mine. She was my daughter’s, adopted eighteen years ago after Leann’s first year of college. The plan was for Ramona and her litter mate Beezus to join said daughter when she had a place of her own. But you know how those things go.

We chose her because she was a tiny little thing. Too tiny, it turns out–maybe only five weeks when we brought her home, the vet said. Sad, really, because without the mothering she needed, Moni (as we called her) never quite got the hang of happy kitty life. She was bullied (unbeknownst to me for some time) by our other two cats and often hid or perched herself atop the refrigerator. House sitters could go for days without seeing her when we traveled. When I discovered the cats were blocking her access to food, her food bowl and water joined her up on the ‘frig where she seemed quite content to monitor life from a distance. Moni would rarely let us pet her; even the slightest approach on our part and she’d scurry away. Cuddles were out of the question. She never made a peep and I was convinced she couldn’t purr. And her long black coat was a mess of snarls and mats since the little thing missed out on those lessons her momma should have taught her before she left the litter.

But after the other cats crossed the Rainbow Bridge and especially once I was alone myself, she began to come out of her shell. She’d curl up on the loveseat. Sleep under the bed or behind a chair by the heat vent. She would head butt me for pets. She’d call me every morning for breakfast. (Usually at 5 AM, no less.) Sometimes she even tolerated a flick of the brush or two. And at the very end–heart-sick, weak, and suffering–she tucked her head in the crook of my elbow and snuggled in for one last time. It might not be too much of a stretch to say we helped each other heal.

A good kitty, indeed.