(part 3)
We finally meet Bootsie!
My mother was not an animal lover when I was growing up.She resisted my siblings’ and my pestering her for a pet for many years. Finally, when I was about 9, she relented and let us have a kitten. I was in heaven. We named the cat Bootsie because she had white boots. She also had a patch of white fur on her chest and another patch on her face. I thought she was beautiful; my brother tolerated her; Deenie was afraid of her; and Jenae hadn’t yet been born. Boots and Mom simply stayed out of one another’s way as much as possible.
Boots was a true cat, which means she had an independent spirit. Like most cats, she would meow to go outside, then stand halfway in the door looking at you as if you were an idiot until you would finally, in desperation, nudge her out of the door with your foot. She was so well trained, that after reaching her maturity, she never had an accident in the house. On one occasion, she was left inadvertently in the house while we were out of town for the weekend. We came home to find that Boots had deposited her business on the bathtub drain. Such self-control helped keep the uneasy truce between the cat and my mother intact.
Boots was not perfect. The truce was broken a few times. For example, she had her first litter of kittens in Deenie’s crib. Mom and Dad cleaned up the mess and removed Boots and her babies to a soft, cloth-lined box in the kitchen. That night, in the middle of the night, the entire household was awakened by Deenie’s screaming, “Kitties in bed!Kitties in bed!” We thought she must have been having a nightmare until Dad turned on the bedroom light. Sure enough, there was Boots, complete with her litter of kittens, curled up in the corner of the crib. That cat had moved every kitten, one at a time, back into Deenie’s bed. After that, Deenie really did have nightmares about cats – and dislikes them to this day!
A second breech of protocol, which almost landed Bootsie and her babies in the pound, was the Sunday Mom left the pot roast out to thaw on the kitchen counter. We came home from church to find Boots and all of her kittens gnawing on the remains of the roast on the kitchen floor. I thought we should just wash it off and cook it anyway, but Mom would have none of it. So the cats had beef roast for Sunday dinner and we had cornflakes. I’ve rarely seen my mother so angry, particularly since beef roast was so expensive, we rarely got to eat it.
One final word about Bootsie, before I leave the subject: Boots was a special friend of my Grandmother Lou. My maternal grandmother had been widowed for many years and, by the time Bootsie was a mature cat, Grandma’s health had begun to fail. She sold her house in Provo and divided her time between our home in Las Vegas and my aunts’ homes in Salt Lake City. I had long since understood that my mother’s general lack of affinity with pets was inherited from her mother. That my grandmother developed a tolerant affection for Bootsie was, therefore, nothing short of a miracle.
As Grandma had become less active and unable to drive or get around much, she liked to sit and do handwork. She did beautiful needlepoint and later, as her eyesight began to fail, she crocheted rugs. Grandma would sit in the big, rose-colored chair by the south window and Boots would curl up at Grandma’s feet. It was always a comfortable, companionable scene to walk into the living room and see Grandma in her chair by the window and Boots curled up at her feet, watching the yarn unfurl.
Each fall, when Grandma arrived for her winter visit, the first thing she would do was look for the cat. Bootsie was usually waiting close to the door for her to arrive. They’d look at each other, then Grandma would say something truly profound - and I quote - “Boots, are you still on the turf?” That fact established, the visit could officially begin.
The years passed. Boots became old. Grandma became ill. Yet still, when Grandma would arrive in the fall, Boots would be there to greet her and Grandma would be there to say,“Boots, are you still on the turf?” One year, grandma didn’t come. Her body was failing and she had entered a hospital in Salt Lake City for what was to be the last time. I knew I would likely not see her again.
One morning, not long after Grandma was hospitalized, Boots failed to return from her nocturnal wanderings. Dad found her body a little later that morning. Boots, faithful Boots, was no longer “on the turf.” Grandma followed her two weeks later. I’d like to believe that Grandma and Boots have continued their relationship on a more celestial ”turf” with Grandma doing needlework in a comfortable heavenly chair by a window and Boots curled up at her feet, watching the yarn unfurl.
© Gebara Education, 2001. No portion of this book may be copied by any method without the express written permission of the author. Picture 1 from http://attackofthecute.com/. Picture 2 from http://pets.webmd.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment