Shirley Murphy - Christmas Cats - A Literary Companion

That year, I remember Christmas was especially warm, at least by Chicago standards. It was about 32 degrees, and snow was falling lightly. Had I taken out his piano, it would have been the perfect backdrop for a chorus of "White Christmas." Instead we just slipped on his burnt orange sweater for a quick visit outside to play catch with the white beetles falling from the sky. That would be Ricky's last holiday.

The following summer, I lost my best buddy. He succumbed at a young age, as musical geniuses sometimes seem to do. He died of an all-too-common heart disease in cats called feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

As often happens with cats who have feline HCM, Ricky just dropped. One moment he was eating, the next moment he was dead. It's horrifying to see your beloved pet die. His tiny heart just gave out. Because of Ricky's HGM, the lower portion of his heart muscle was thicker than it should have been. Because of the thickening, his heart could not relax well or fill up with blood as it should have. If feline HCM is detected early, as it was with Ricky, a cat has a chance of at least a few more years of life, prolonged by medication.

When Ricky died, I felt as though I lost my best friend. I'm not sure I'll have another cat who knows what I'm thinking before I do it, or vice versa. Ricky and I had an astonishing psychic kind of connection. We were sort of the Lassie and Timmy of the cat world, except Ricky never rescued me from a well.

Every now and again I catch a rerun of Ricky on TV. I'm glad Ricky is still putting smiles on faces. But I don't need a TV rerun to remember Ricky. To some it might sound crazy, but a day doesn't go by that I don't think about Ricky, most especially whenever we have a white Christmas.

Spooky Gives Us a Scare

Janine Adams

My cat, Joe, doesn't leave the house. But in the '60s and '70s when I was a child, no one (in my neighborhood at least) would dream of cooping their cat up indoors. So our gray domestic shorthairs, Spooky and Samantha, roamed the neighborhood. They could come inside whenever they wanted, though they didn't have a litter box and were asked to spend the night outside, except when the weather was bitterly cold.

Every morning, when my mother would bring in the morning paper, Samantha was on the porch waiting to come in. Spooky would come running out of nowhere to join her. But one early December Saturday morning when I was ten, only Samantha was on the porch when my mom opened the door. Spooky did not respond to her calls. He was nowhere in sight.

We shrugged it off, figuring that he'd found something especially fun to occupy him the night before. Every hour or so, one of us—either my parents, one of my brothers, or me, especially me—would open the front door, then the back door, and call out for him. No big gray cat with big green eyes would appear. By suppertime, we were worried. "If he's not back by morning, we'll send out a search team," my mom said. "But I think he'll be here in the morning."

I got up early the next morning, just as it was turning light. While the rest of the family slept, I crept downstairs and opened the door, holding my breath in anticipation. There was Samantha, who pushed her way in and noisily demanded an early breakfast. But no Spooky. I raced upstairs to tell my parents.

Despite the early hour, my parents didn't brush me off. They roused themselves, put on their robes, and came downstairs to talk with me about how we would find our kitty. As my mother put on coffee, my dad fed Samantha. I suggested we call the police, but my parents said they probably had more important things to work on than a missing cat. Once my brothers got up we sat at the breakfast table and made a list of all the things we would do to find Spooky. My oldest brother, Scott, who had an artistic flair, made a "lost cat" sign. We pasted a photo to the sign and photocopied it at my dad's office. Since Spooky was dark gray, the copied photo certainly didn't capture his beauty—or show off any distinguishing features—but we figured it was better than nothing.

My brothers and I pooled our money and were able to offer a $25 reward, which my parents doubled to $5O- My father got in the car and drove around looking for Spooky. Scott, Larry, and I got on our bikes and plastered the immediate neighborhood with our signs. My mother stayed home in case Spooky appeared or someone called about him.

I was sure that our signs would do the trick. We were offering $50 for his return! But nightfall came on Sunday and there was no Spooky. Not even a telephone call about him.

I didn't want to go to school on Monday. "Let me stay home and look for Spooky," I begged my mom. She told me I could ride around on my bike looking for him after school until dark. "I'll put a 'lost cat' ad in the paper today," she reassured me. "That'll help us get him home."

After school, I pedaled everywhere I could think of. I stopped mail carriers, delivery truck drivers, anyone I could see. I gave them a flier and described Spooky. No one had seen him, but everyone said they'd keep an eye out for him. "Just call us if you see him," I said anxiously. "Our phone number's right on the piece of paper."

As the days crept by with no Spooky sightings, my hope began to fade. I couldn't imagine that my cat would run away. Maybe somebody stole him, I thought. Or maybe he got hit by a car. He was wearing only a bell on his collar—no tag—so if someone found his body they wouldn't know to call us. I started making deals with God. "Bring Spooky home and I'll do my homework every night before dinner," I bargained. Even though Spooky hadn't made it home, I began doing my homework as soon as I came home from looking for him, just in case it would help.

After our cat had been gone a week, I started to get desperate. Even though the police station in our small city was farther away than I was allowed to go on my bike, I grabbed one of the lost cat signs and took it to the police station.

I was barely tall enough to reach the top of the high counter. "Excuse me," I said politely. "My cat is lost." I noticed a look of amusement cross the desk sergeant's face, but then he looked down at me with a serious expression.

"How long has he been gone?" he inquired gravely.

"A whole week!" I wailed. "Here's his picture." I handed the cop our flier.

"Well, we haven't received any reports of a cat matching this description," he said to me kindly. "But I'll post this sign here on the bulletin board and ask the officers to keep an eye out for him. What's your cat's name?"

"It's Spooky. When he was a kitten, his eyes were so big it looked like he'd seen a ghost, so that's why we named him Spooky."

"He's a fine-looking cat," the sergeant said. "I hope we find him."

I pedaled home with new hope in my heart. If the whole police force of Walla Walla, Washington, was looking for Spooky, surely they'd find him. If he was still alive. I pushed that last thought out of my head and concentrated on the possibility that he would be found.

Meanwhile, poor Samantha seemed to be missing her brother. She wasn't eating as enthusiastically as she usually did. And she was more affectionate with us, particularly in the evening hours. She didn't complain as much. "She misses her brother, " I observed to my parents.

"We all miss him," my father replied. I tried not to cry.

I took comfort in the fact that we were having relatively warm weather for December. Every morning when I asked, my mother would check the paper and tell me how cold it had been the day before; it rarely dipped below freezing. "Maybe someone took him in thinking he was a stray," my mother said. I knew that idea was supposed to comfort me, but instead it made me mad. "He's my cat! They can't just keep him," I protested. But I realized it was better than some things that could have happened to him.