“Watch out for that one – we think he’s feral,” the attendant said. She pointed to the largest of the three, a gray and white kitten who was standing guard at the front of the cold, clanging cage.
“The other two are nice though. That gray one really loves to be held, actually.”
I nodded and smiled, my eyes locked with those of that gray and white kitten, who seemed to know that the kittens’ fate had been precarious.
He’s not feral, I thought. He’s just protective, and really smart.
Over the next nine years, I’d learn just how much.
All three of them – siblings – fit into the carrier that I had brought with me that summer day. At just five or six weeks old, they were impossibly, adorably small. But they were too young to care for themselves properly (their matted hair a testament to that fact) and the littlest one had a bad sneeze. The shelter had no space and no ability to care for sick cats. So as adorable as these kittens were, their hours were literally numbered.
When I saw the blurry photo of the three caged kittens, an all-caps “URGENT” in the Facebook post, I responded that we would foster them until they were old enough to adopt out.
But I knew in my heart that our family was expanding by three that day.
They were so dirty that the first thing I did when I brought them home was to get out a big metal popcorn bowl, fill it with baby-safe warm water, and ever-so-gently bathe each of them. As I expected, the blaze on the gray and white kitten’s face was not beige, but a bright gleaming white.
He was the dirtiest of the three – I think because he had been tending to his brother and sister. As I gently scrubbed the matted litter out of his polka-dotted toe-beans, he looked up at me with those beautiful, soulful, green eyes.
I dried each of them off with soft baby towels, put them in a pampers box (this was back when my now-tween was in diapers) and took them to the upstairs bathroom, where they would have room to explore and settle in.
While the other two goofed around and played king of the hill on rolls of toilet paper and acted like crazy carefree kittens, the gray and white one stood off to one side. He was measured. Thoughtful. He explored, but cautiously. He took everything in, assessed the situation, checked out every corner.
And then, finally, in one of the sweetest and most memorable moments in my life, he decided he was home.
I saw him come around the corner of the bathroom, tail held high over his little five-week-old frame, purring with such ferocity that his entire body shook from nose to tail.
And that’s when I knew I was His Momma.
We named him Van.
A baby Van with his sister Charlotte and brother Vinny.
He was my shadow, my writing partner, my side kick and best good pal. He had human-level intelligence, and was a great conversationalist. He’d walk into a room, catch your eye, and lift his chin – his version of “hey, momma, what’s up?” If you said something to him, he’d respond back with a quack or a squeak. We had many such chats like that, back and forth and back again.
His patented move was what we call the “silent meow” – the most adorable non-meow meow that you’ve ever seen. And his purr was the kind of purr you’d expect from a tiger. Intense. Complete. All-in.
He was a tough guy and by far the largest of the cats – about twice the size of his sister. But he loved soft things. Once when I unfolded a new ultra-soft blanket for the couch, he began to walk across it but literally melted into a puddle of purrs, his nose buried in the fluff.
He was a houdini who could get into or out of anything. A while back we spent a few months in a rental house in Michigan. In an odd architectural decision, the heat exchange fed into the downstairs bathroom cabinet – the very cabinet where you’d typically store towels. Van discovered this new warm and cozy cave, and taught himself how to open the cabinet doors. We got used to hearing the soft “thud” that told us that baby Vanny had gone into his little hiding place.
He never met a box he didn’t think he could fit into, or one that didn’t deserve to be explored. Once I was getting ready to tape up a box of packing peanuts when I realized it was heavier than it should be and seemed to be moving.
Out popped Van.
He posed for a picture.
He was a great mouser, which I learned early on when I stepped on something soft and furry as I walked into the kitchen to get my morning coffee. As I stifled a scream I saw Van, sitting a few feet away, head cocked to one side as if to say “Good morning, Momma! I brought you breakfast! You’re welcome!”
He was very proud of himself. (And if I’m honest, I was proud of him, too.)
Then there was the time when we were in the rental house in Michigan and he caught a mouse by the very tip of its tail. Around and around the living room he ran, mouse dangling from his teeth, while we chased after him – screaming at him to let it go. (He eventually did. The mouse survived to tell the tale. Van was not pleased.)
When he’d be blue for whatever reason, a few hours of “momma time” was prescribed, and he would get a few hours solo – just the two of us, one-on-one. That solved every problem.
Until this last time, when it didn’t.
A few years back he had some strange problem with his kidneys – an ultrasound and too many pokes and prods later still didn’t diagnose the problem. Something genetic, perhaps, or maybe just a fluke. He was a young cat – just 6 or 7 at the time – and pulled out of it, but I knew then that we were on borrowed time with my baby boy.
But you’re never ready, no matter how much you tell yourself you will be. No matter how much you drink in every moment, savor every scratch, every belly rub, every silent meow. It’s never enough.
Van was my furry alarm clock, waking me up every morning at 5am for his breakfast.
And so when the day after Christmas I awoke after 6am – not to the sound of his scratching at the door but to the birds outside – I knew something was wrong.
We got him to the hospital, fully expecting him to return home in a few hours. But the prognosis was dire. Probable kidney failure, they said, though they’d keep him for another day to be sure. Because we needed to be sure.
A day later, and the diagnosis certain, and we knew we had to say goodbye to our baby boy.
My son threw up, which I thought was the appropriate response.
“What are we going to do without Van?” he asked earnestly, as if I knew the answer.
And friend, I do not know the answer.
So Sunday, I closed out this year by holding my sweet baby boy and giving him ever so many nose kisses. I brought his softest blanket and wore my softest sweater. I memorized the feel of his head on my forearm, counted his polka-dotted toe beans for the millionth time, buried my nose in his neck fur, and tried to tell him in all the ways I could think of just how much he is loved.
And then, just like that, he was gone.
The house is darker now. The world has dimmed a bit.
Friend, I know this newsletter is supposed to be about politics. But it’s also about heart.
And as I was talking to my son yesterday about the worst parts of grief, I told him that the pain we feel is so deep and so profound because the love we have is so complete and full.
We loved Van with our whole heart, so our whole heart is broken.
I know there’s a political analogy here to explore – that there are things you love with your whole heart and the reason you’re grieving is because you care. That we don’t get the highlights without the shadows, but that doesn’t make the shadows any easier to bear – especially as we are walking through them.
But I hope you’ll forgive me if today I don’t explore that analogy. I hope you’ll forgive me if the words come a little slower today, because Van’s head isn’t resting on my arm (or my hand) while I type. We wrote a lot of things together, he and I.
It was an absolute honor, an absolute honor, to be his momma.
Friend, typically on Tuesday posts I provide a few small actions for the week. This being a holiday week, and these being special circumstances, we will take this week off and get back to our regular actions next Tuesday. I will see you then, if not before.
Hold all your babies close, friends. All your babies.
Small Deeds Done 