10/21/2006 - Colorblind

            Cats do not like me. I am sure this is because they somehow know that I like dogs more. Dogs appear as intellectuals to me. I tried several times to bring cats home when I was a girl to prove it wrong, but every time it was a fiasco: the cats either ran away, or even tried to commit suicide. You never heard of that? Let me tell you!
    One kitten bit the electrical cord and his body was making a rhythmical sound every time it hit the wall under the sofa. I found the cat in agony with the cord in its mouth covered with foam. That was not a pretty picture. I felt like a hero after saving my pet, but the cat never appreciated the sacrifice, leaving poop in my shoes in the closet until my friend decided that she was a better match for this type of thing " she didn’t mind the smell.
            My second cat fell from the top of the door onto a sharp metal surface and broke its back. That accident amused everybody - Japanese martial artists study how to fall on all fours without injury…and where do they go to learn this?  From...cats. Our cat probably was not Japanese and didn't know how to fall graciously.
    The third cat jumped out of the balcony on the fifth floor where we had our apartment and died after hitting the ground. Then I stopped trying.
    Five years ago I stopped at one of the pet stores to buy food for my fish and looked at the little puppies that cuddled or played in their cages.
    "How cute!" - I couldn't take my eyes off those clumsy little dogs.
    I looked inside another cage with the sign "SOLD" and saw a tiny kitten. My son was begging me to get a cat for a long time, but I had to be firm - no more victims in my house. This time a strange feeling arose in my heart while I was looking at that kitten and especially after I held that tiny creature in my hands: I knew it was OUR cat. A person who wanted to buy the kitten didn't come. The only problem with the pet was the color - it was a black cat! If a black cat crosses a street, people change their direction in an instant. I knew it was bad luck to even to see one but I had already begun falling in love with that cute blue-eyed trustful kitten.
    "This is the time to finally get rid of my prejudice and fear." I decided bravely. I got even happier noticing the funny little white tufts of hair sticking out behind the cat’s ears. "It's not black, it's not black." I recited these words in my car driving home. But deep in my mind I still doubted trying to find a reason to take the cat back. "What if my son has an allergy to cats? What if the cat brings us misfortune?"
    My son and I were growing in love for this new member of our family. Our love was tested for the first time when the cute white hair from behind the ears fell out, and our unusual cat turned into a very ordinary black cat - no white color at all. I tried really hard to find at least one microscopic white spot, but failed. I even thought about bleaching a few spots to cheat nature, but I had already begun to learn that the color didn’t matter. Love did.
    Another test was around the corner. Our black kitten had a unique way to make faces: she would stick her red little tongue out between the teeth to amuse everybody. No one had ever seen cat acting like a stubborn child! Little did we know the reason…our precious kitten developed oral cancer. The cat’s mouth was getting more and more deformed and looked ugly. The tumor bled. The vet suggested putting the cat to sleep. I didn’t know I could suffer this inevitable loss so badly. I couldn’t neither get it nor explain it: it was just an ordinary black cat, but I wouldn’t give up our family member.  The vet gave our kitten one month to live, but love did the miracle " the cat lived through that month and then another month and another. The ordinary mud black cat became a true miracle! A funny black miracle with only one tooth in her mouth sticking out, but we loved her even more. She was there with us alive; she would live.
    Cancer stepped into our family as uninvited guest, and I couldn’t help it, thinking again about the color of our cat. My Dad was diagnosed with cancer and I couldn’t help thinking, “What if I brought misfortune into the family?” Who would imagine that cats could have cancer?!
Little did I know that our black cat could become a symbol of hope and survival for my father. Every time my Dad called, he asked about the cat, “How is she? Is she doing well? Are you telling me the truth?”
My Dad died first and then, two years later, the cat lost the fight too.
    “No more cats!” " that was my firm decision. The shadow of suffering was hanging heavily over our heads.
    My husband called me from work and said, “My friend needs to find a home to his kitten, do we want one?”
    “Honey, we decided to never have pets again, remember? Remember that whole ordeal?”
    “Well, his daughter gave him a kitten for Father’s Day and he never had a cat before. He doesn’t want one.”
    “Remember the kitty litter, love?!”
    “His daughter is leaving for college and my friend is stuck with the cat he doesn’t want!”
    “Well, what is the color?”
    “Black…” Something warm moved in the core of my stomach. I paused, listening to my pounding heart.
    “I guess, it’s meant to be. Bring her in.”
    When the kitten arrived, it was so tiny that she disappeared in the black blanket. I almost crushed her neck, trying to get off my armchair, holding carefully my laptop in one hand and using my other hand to get off the ottoman. I had put all my weight on the fingers to keep the balance, pressing against the spongy surface. The kitten’s neck ended right between my fingers. Thankfully, that tragedy was averted.
This little five weeks black creature happened to be right where you want her less. I tried to move the floor lamp to a new place and had to really watch that I didn’t make my kitten carry the lamp on her back. After checking a carefully selected spot twice, I confidently placed the lamp down on the floor just to see four tiny legs and one black tail sticking out underneath it.
    The kitten grew and needed to be “fixed”. The day she came home she pulled out all stitches and had to be taken back to the vet with her tummy split right in the middle. The surgeon met me at the door after the surgery with puzzled look, “She is ornery! I just finished stitching her and she pulled all stitches out again. I stapled her this time and put stitches that do not dissolve, but I am still not sure it will work. She is quite a character!”
    May be it is not black cats that bring bad luck to us people, but we people bring bad luck to black cats?