Mama Moseley
“I never asked for much.”
written by: Stephen Michael Berberich
Can you see me? I can’t tell. I am the cat lying on my side on the soft pillow on the bed. The other cat in the room is my daughter, Streakie. She is just watching me, hoping I’ll get better. See the orange streaks in her beautiful gray hair? Just like my coat used to look.
I was once a homeless cat, living outside. It is a rough life, but I have been luckier than most homeless cats, I think, because I never lost hope for a better life.
Are you still there? Can you hear my thoughts? I don’t have much time left to tell my story.
I was born on a cold night among a litter of kittens in a place of straw under the hoofs of horses and mules. That was twelve or more cold seasons ago. Homeless cats don’t live this long.
Our mother ran away after one cycle of the moon, leaving us babies in the straw. We mostly just huddled together. All of us cried and cried each waking morning until kind people left us food and water daily in a corner of the straw place. I believe they wanted us to stay in the straw place.
When the weather got warmer, we were no longer afraid of the people bringing food, especially me.
Soon, one by one, the other kitties in the litter were taken away by loud visitors with children. I was so threatened by the kiddy-nappings, I buried myself in the straw.
Scarier people arrived as the weather became hot. They wanted to ride the big, hoofed animals out of the straw place. The animals stomped and kicked violently around until they carried the scary people outside. We were terrified.
I was only half-grown by then, but it was time to leave the straw place. The other kittens left, too. We all went our separate ways. We live solitary lives, which can often leave a cat at a serious disadvantage to predators.
I lived in the wild then for three cycles of the moon when I let my guard down on a dark evening along the edge of a dense patch of woods. I didn’t see that tomcat behind me. When I detected his strong male odor, it was too late. He pounced, knocking me down. I was paralyzed with fear.
By the time my head cleared, he was on me, biting my neck each time I resisted. I was still not a fully grown female cat. No matter to him. He hurt me. I screamed and growled. He didn’t stop. I nearly passed out. And then, just as quickly as he had arrived, he was gone.
I tried, from then on, to stay on higher ground and in trees I could climb. I was a small cat, but very quick. I could outrun a hulking raccoon or dodge the talons of a swooping eagle from above. I could climb trees quickly to escape a fox or coyote. After the tomcat’s ambush, I stayed extra vigilant in enclosed areas, and I scanned open fields and people’s yards continuously for trouble.
When the weather turned cold, I was feeling dizzy and tired. My teats were swollen and sore. I was worried that I could no longer catch and eat enough wild critters to satisfy my appetite. My belly was bloated, even without much food.
Desperate for some shelter, I found a big wooden porch extending from the sunny side of a house.
It rained heavily for two days with thunder and wicked lightning flashing overhead from storm after storm. When I walked to the edge of the porch to drink from a puddle, I fell over in pain. I thought I’d die there in the muck. Soon, however, I was blessed to give birth to my four beautiful kittens, three boys, and a girl.
From the mud under the porch, I lightly gripped the tiny, precious baby cats in my teeth, one at a time, and carried them to a dry spot under the porch where I cleaned each one with my tongue and paws carefully. It was a joyful new experience, but also worrisome. I was too weak to feed them as much as they wanted. My daughter was not getting enough of my milk because the three boys crowded her off me.
The next day, a woman came out of the house with some gooey food on a piece of paper and water in a bowl. She came out every day with food and water for us, sometimes with a man from the house too. I would gather the kittens from our hiding place deep under the porch and lead them out to the water bowl. They licked some of the food sparingly. The man and the woman seemed to be good-natured.
Nearly every time I saw the woman, she uttered human words like ‘moseying’ and ‘slow poking.’ I figured she was the first person to call me Moseley for my cautious ways, moseying along near humans.
After another moon cycle, the kittens had grown twice their size. All seemed to be well—no tomcat attacks, no storms, no stomping of horse hoofs—until the man and the woman betrayed us.
Did the man and the woman forget us? I wondered. I nudged my four kittens back under the porch, but they were too fidgety to calm down. They, too, were hungry.
Venturing out a bit, I detected the aroma of the gooey cat food on top of the porch. I walked cautiously toward that smell. The kittens, unfortunately, followed. There were two big bowls of food inside a big, wire box.
Streakie, the runt of my litter, came last into the box. After I nudged her toward the food, a door on the box slammed shut. We were trapped. The man ran out of the house and opened the wire box door. I stepped back to cover the kittens. He threw a blanket over me. I freed one paw, hissed, and clawed his arm. The sight of a drop of his blood frightened me. Would the man hurt me back? I had no chance to fight or escape. I was very, very angry. My babies peeped meows, objecting to the man and woman for separating them from me.
He covered my head and legs, picked me up, and released me into a smaller wire box. I saw the kittens cowering in a corner of the bigger wire box, peeping and crying their eyes out. I was devastated.
I stumbled onto my side and hissed when the man whisked the blanket off me. I then saw my kittens in a similar small wire cage. The man and woman put us in the cages on a table against their house, still on the porch. I reached through the cages to touch and stroke them with my paws. I could see they were all right, but I no longer felt uncommonly lucky for a homeless cat.
The woman brought out a tray of food for themselves. After they ate, they continued to talk to us. I think they were probably saying we were going to the cat hospital.
In the morning, the man took my kittens away. I covered my face with my paws and cried. Soon, the woman carried me in the wire box into the house with her, where she continued to talk to me, still with soft words of kindness that meant nothing to me then. I wanted my family back.
The man returned soon, but without my babies! They were gone. My sadness sickened me to my bones. My heart nearly stopped beating. My body was limp and without any feeling, dead to the touch.
That night, with my babies still missing, the man carried the cage holding me to the table again on the porch, beneath part of the house roof. I tried hard at first not to hate him for taking my family from me. Then, a violent storm approaching from the other side of the house distracted and frightened me.
With his arms waving toward a window to the inside of the house, the man was insisting, I think, that his woman stay inside. He remained outside with me as the storm raged most of the night. The thunder and lightning were ferocious, rocking the house and flashing light over ghostly daylight scenes of the yard. And yet, the man stayed out talking with me calmly. Several times, he reached into the cage to pet me, but I moved away from his hand. He slept in a big chair next to me and brought me food at first light of the morning. I could not eat. My only thoughts were about my missing boys and my daughter. I studied that man’s nice face and soft voice as he spoke to me frequently that night. I felt safe somehow for myself, but I didn’t want to become fond of this man who had taken my kittens. Where were they?
My heart warmed when I saw the man carrying them back to me the next day. I wanted to fuss over them, of course, but they were still in their cage and very sleepy. Our two cages were only together for a little time before the man carried mine to his car, covered with a blanket, to drive to the cat hospital.
An old woman in a white coat was the cat doctor, I suppose, because she put me into a sleepy spell. I woke up with blood from a cut on my belly. The man talked to me kindly as he drove me back to his house. He then carried me in the cage to the edge of the big porch.
The woman waved to the man. She carried out the cage holding my kittens. They opened the doors to both wire cages, freeing us. Without a second of hesitation, we ran under the porch.
During the entire ordeal, the woman kept saying a human word, “tomcats.” Whenever I saw a male cat around the house, she would say that word. After the cat hospital visits, she said tom cats would never bother us again because we were “fixed.”
When my three boys and daughter were almost fully grown, it was time to teach them to be smart about living outside. I vividly remember that as soon as they could stand up, the little kitties had instinctively played at fighting and running after each other. They seemed to be thinking ‘be strong and fight’. It came naturally, as I had learned with my kitten brothers and sisters after our mother cat left us in the straw place under the hoofs of animals.
However, it was not enough to depend just on a cat’s instincts. I needed to teach them to avoid danger. I gathered my kittens to the base of a small tree behind the house. With a soft growl, I made all four of them pay attention at the same time. That was not easy.
I nodded toward the tree and took a mighty leap up. I climbed to the first tree limbs and then didn’t come down until I locked into all four sets of kitten eyes.
Below me was the largest one, dark-gray Big Boy, who was puzzled. Next to him were the identical twin gray boys, Bright Eyes and Cagey Boy. Behind the three boys, my daughter, Streakie, waited for her turn with little enthusiasm. I climbed down to watch and supervise by nipping and nudging them along.
Big Boy was my choice to approach the tree first. He was the biggest and strongest. Maybe the others will learn from him, I thought. I nudged him, but he resisted moving. He didn’t understand right away. I bit him on the neck lightly and nodded toward the tree. He slowly approached the tree only after I got on my hind legs and waved a paw with authority to ‘go up.’ He did poorly on the first try. Didn’t get to the first limbs. But I loved his effort. Big Boy was a slow learner, I concluded.
In my frustration with my big kid, I had completely lost track of Streakie. In one motion of my paw, I ordered my boys with a stern look to stay put while I ran toward the porch to look for my wayward daughter.
She was there chasing around in circles and jumping high, chomping at nothing. I could not see her imaginary friends or objects. She was not crazy, just very playful, introverted, and my delightfully free-spirited favorite.
The twin boys, Bright Eyes and Cagey Boy, mastered the tree-climbing escape test and helped me encourage Big Boy by pushing on his rump. He could not climb quickly, too heavy perhaps to out-climb a predator or outjump a fox. I hoped not. And, at long last, as we watched, tiny Streakie zipped up the tree easily, due to her careful nature and supple frame. She hid immediately behind the trunk, high up in the tree as if a predator was on the prowl.
Next, I taught them survival way in the woods. The first walk was short to get them used to the natural sights and sounds of the wild. It was important to get them used to the many animals passing through the woods, in the air, and on the ground. We pretended to hunt for prey–the usual rodents, bugs, and sweet grass to chew to calm an upset stomach.
I walked ahead while assuming all four of my offspring were behind. But on that first venture far away from the house, I soon realized Streakie was missing again. I panicked. We ran back to the house.
Streakie saw us first, from inside the house through a glass door to the porch. If she were a captive against her will, Streakie would have been scratching and pawing at the glass to get out. But she wasn’t. She seemed to be content to stay in the house. I kept the boys there with me, watching Streakie all night. The man and woman petted her a little. They fed her at the door and fed us on the other side, her facing us, we facing her.
Within a few days, I had accepted that my daughter, not me, was the luckiest cat in the neighborhood. She had a comfortable home, and the man and woman fed her at that door for us to see her. She did not seem to be afraid of living with humans. I would be; so would my boys, I think. We preferred the bold and competitive life in the wild.
My boys grew into full-size cats during the next several cycles of the seasons. They ventured out in daylight, and we all returned to the house at night for food and shelter. We were still cats in the wild, but not stupid enough to leave the house in the dead of night, when it was safer under the porch there.
Big Boy followed me back closely to the house each day. Unlike his brothers, he clung to the security with his Mama. The woman brought food and water to the outside steps next to the kitchen for me and Big Boy. I think he needed my guidance because he was slow on foot and of mind. He was also a pest for attention and crowded me, but I loved him. He voiced very few cat sounds. His brothers, by contrast, would meow, whimper, and purr loudly, especially when hungry.
The woman in the house always greeted Big Boy and me with a smile. She seemed to keep a special love in her heart for him. She also seemed relieved to see us together.
One evening on the steps after returning, I was putting my nose down to some gooey food when I felt incomplete and alone. Big Boy was not there. He did not return with me. For many changes in the seasons by then, he had always lumbered along several steps behind me in our daily adventures outside. I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t always check. I was focused too much on my appetite that night and not enough on monitoring my boy.
Instead of staring into the house as usual from the brick steps into the kitchen to see Streakie, or finish my dinner, I ran back into the woods. I searched the neighborhood of human properties. My reliable, Big Boy companion was not on the steps, the porches, the lawns of those properties, nor at the farm fields beyond. I didn’t find any trace of his distinctive fur or find him dead or injured. Perish the thought.
Sure, he might be dim-witted, I pondered, but the boy has always been the nicest cat I knew. He was also beautiful. I decided then that he must have been adopted by people in a house somewhere. Maybe some people took a shine to his beautiful coat, green eyes, and calm disposition to adopt Big Boy. At the same time, I wished it were I who disappeared, not clumsy Big Boy. For many moon cycles, I never lost hope.
The days passed peacefully then for many cycles of the seasons. Streakie continued to watch us living outside, wagging her tail and pacing happily. We could see her inside playing with the man and woman who seemed delighted with their new pet. The woman sometimes left the door open to invite us to come inside. That was not for me and the two boys in a million season cycles.
***
Living near the house was tranquil and uneventful most of the time, especially compared with living in the wild in my early years.
That all began to change one regrettable day, however. The tranquility was shattered by loud noises from ruckus trucks and heavy equipment at a nearby human property. When the noise ended hours after sunset, I decided to mosey over there under the cloak of darkness to find out what people there had been doing. Though felines are known for keen curiosity, cats can sometimes get too curious. I could find my way because I could see in nearly complete darkness. Most so-called homeless or alley cats can.
I needed to scout the site to protect my boys; let them know what to avoid over at the site. Also, I was wishing there might be tasty snacks left on the property. Humans at work or play often drop or forget remnants of food they brought with them.
I didn’t eat that evening. Instead, I left all the woman’s generous portions of cat food for the boys. I did not want them to follow me to the noisy place.
I discovered that the noisy house property was very messy with trash, stacks of building materials, and pickup trucks left behind full of equipment. A family had once lived there, but the house was dark and deserted now.
I smelled something delicious inside a dark opening in a lumber stack. Fish! I sniffed closer and closer inside that little space of darkness. The first bite was very tasty. My next thought was to take the boys there for some fish. There were no people around, so why not?
SLAM!! I was startled by the clank of a wire cage door slamming behind me. This dumb, overconfident cat had gotten herself into a wire cage. I pounded my head against the sides until I was bleeding. I scratched and pulled on the wires until my paws hurt. Would I be seeing another cat doctor? Not likely.
I was trapped all night. Cry? Simmer with anger? No and no. We cats have a stoic temperament when in such a fix. If I could ever expect to see my family again, I needed my strength, both physically and mentally.
At daybreak, the workers arrived. I heard, “Hey, there is a cat in there.” They removed a towel over the wire box and pulled it with me into the sunlight. Three rough-tempered men stared. “What should we do with it?” one said. Another said, “Just leave it. Call the reel state guy. It is his trap.”
They left ‘it’ (me) there and resumed their day. I didn’t know what ‘reel state guy’ meant, but I recognized many human words at my age.
A fat man arrived at midday in a big white van marked with a blue and red human lettering I couldn’t read, of course. He parked in the shade near me while eating for a long time, as I was in the sweltering sun. He shook hands with a construction man in a helmet, picked up the cage, and threw it with me into the back seat of his vehicle.
After a long ride, some young humans came out of a dingy building and carried me in the cage to a smelly room with many other cats in similar wire cages. Some were crying. Others, including some sad, tiny kittens huddled in a box, were tolerating their capture in silence.
I was there for what seemed like several days, though there were no windows to tell if it was day or night. Some humans came to take cats away from time to time. More cats came in each day. On other days, cats were taken out of the room. It seemed like a cat hospital without a cat doctor or nurse. I plotted an escape, if possible.
One day, a young female worker selected my wire cage. She carried it with me to a parking lot and to the feet of two humans. The young worker said words like, “Last day for her. Is she yours?”
I was frightened by all the mystery until I looked up at the two people. They were the man and woman from the house where my twin boys and I slept under their porch. They said my name, Moseley.
I meowed loudly. They took me home.
I expected them to release me to the porch again, but they did not. They instead put the cage on carpeting in a big room in their house. Streakie watched as they opened the cage door. At first, I was surprised they would let me go into their house just like that. When I realized I could, I ran with Streakie in tow behind big furniture. I licked her coat like days of old. I was so happy to be near her again. She turned circles around herself in ecstasy as she rubbed against her mother, purring loudly, until I felt somewhat welcomed in the house. Once again, Mama Moseley, the once-homeless cat, had gotten a huge, lucky break.
After the man and woman turned off most of the house lights that night and left us alone for the entire night, Streakie led me around. In the kitchen, we found two bowls of gooey food and a water bowl. In a fourth bowl were sweet, crunchy niblets.
The man and woman gave me time to adjust to the house without being too close to me, too soon. I heard pity in the first words they spoke to me. Maybe they knew about the fat man in the big white vehicle who put me in a room of sorrowfully unhappy caged cats. If I could have expressed how horrible and stinky it was, I would have told them I never want to live outside and risk such a fate again.
The man and woman accepted me as part of their family. The loving man and woman fed us on the kitchen floor in the corner and showed me boxes of gravelly stuff in the basement for relieving myself.
When they fed us together for the first time, we exchanged glances as we wondered where Cagey and Bright Eyes were. Would they also be captured at the noisy house by the man in the big white vehicle? No, I had trained them well. Each night, Streakie and I sat by the door to the porch until they returned after dark. The twin boys turned in circles and rubbed against the outside of the glass door while Streakie and I did the same inside.
After my life in the rough and tumble world outside, I had arrived in the house with sniffles, cuts, bruises, and weakening eyesight. I had cut my left eye while struggling to get out of the wire cage at the noisy house under construction. Of all my injuries, that seemed to be the most apparent to my human hosts when the man took me to the cat doctor again. But she seemed to believe every part of my body was hurting, except my left eye. She poked, stuck, weighed, measured me, stuffed pills into my mouth, and rubbed wet stuff into my ears. I didn’t growl or bite her for revenge. Not me.
The man held me and talked to me kindly through the ordeal. I sighed in relief for a moment when she was finished, but then tensed up, just as fast. He argued with the cat doctor, who handed him a long piece of paper, which I guessed listed my medicines and work she had completed on me.
I guessed he also wondered, like me, why she didn’t just treat my eye and be done with me. He was not happy about the paper, but hugged me, calmed me down, and promised the cat doctor something.
I found out what when we got home. For many days, he dropped liquid into my left eye. With the first drop, I scratched his arms by accident to get away. After that, he wrapped me in a towel to gather my ‘weapons’ and began to wear a long-sleeved jacket when giving me the drops.
Streakie and I lived together inside the house for the next four or five cycles of the seasons. It was hard to keep track of the time. Such a difference from my earlier life. Remembering and counting the seasonal cycles of my time living in the wild was easy, with all the exciting, often risky adventures.
As my trust grew, I allowed the woman to pick me up and carry me to a big chair to watch and listen to picture stories on a colorful screen in their largest room. Her leg was my pillow as we watched. The woman gently stroked my fur and rubbed my head for hours. I sometimes wondered why I didn’t come in sooner.
My wounded left eye eventually became worse and nearly useless for seeing the picture stories clearly, as well as objects at a distance. The man often took me to the cat doctor, but she could not stop the dimming vision in my right eye, as well. She acted indifferent. Too often, I heard words ‘infections’ and ‘disease’ in a discouraging tone from the doctor and my hosts, the man and woman.
Life for all of us went on without further issues until the man and woman decided to keep me in one room several days ago, which I will call the sick room.
So, as you can see, here I am. That is Streakie over there, as I said to begin my story.
Streakie no longer wants to be near me as I lie here sick on a pillow on the guest bed. I am glad for her, what do they call it, discretion? I do not want her to be sick. She watches me, though, just as the man and woman do.
I am skinny now and cannot see. I am very weak and can no longer stand up. Yes, I am sick, have been for a while. The man and the woman love me so much that even at the end of my life, they keep taking me to the cat hospital. But there is no use now. They hold me still. They pet me still. They still point my nose to a food bowl and water bowl each day, on a clean towel. They feed me here in this comfortable bed. They sit with me here. I am just waiting for another hug and petting session with the man or the woman. I feel grateful for their continuing love. Though I am in pain, I never cry out, make meows for food, or complain. My life has been good. Maybe they don’t know what I know.
Streakie knows for certain, though, that her mother is dying.
Is there a cat heaven? I do not know. I do know, however, that as a former homeless animal living outside, getting to trust and then be adopted by kind human beings could be cat heaven on earth.
Not all homeless animals live as long as me. My wish is that humans be as kind to all of them as the man and woman were to me and my family.
Before I go, I pray to God to watch over all the cats and dogs living outside without homes and that they will find ways to be as fortunate as I was to have my babies under the porch of such fine and generous people who took care of us.
Throughout my life, survival was more than just hoping for luck. It was never losing the will and the spiritual strength to survive when I was hiding under deadly hoofs in the straw place, getting attacked by the tomcat, starving as I tried to feed my litter of kittens, protecting and training them as adolescents, fearing the cat doctors, losing Big Boy to another home and Streakie to an inside life, and learning a hard lesson of terribly bad judgment that foolish night at the noisy property.
Through it all, I never asked for much.
Now that you know my story, please take care of homeless cats for me.
Goodbye, and thank you for listening to my thoughts.
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