Blacky's Story

When Courage was about to turn seven, I convinced her dad she was old enough to have a pet other than a fish or a hamster or mice. So for her birthday, I took her to 'adopt' a kitty. We went to Pet Smart in Duluth to see their selection of kitties. They had a huge, furry, champagne colored Persian with a smooshed in face. We held her and the volunteer told us her previous owner didn't take good care of her fur and the first thing we would have to do is have her shaved to remove all the knots in her fur. She and Courage did not hit it off. They didn't have any kittens, only cats about 6 months and older.

We looked at all the other cats, and finally came to the last cage. The volunteer lifted Courage up and sat her almost inside the cage. Instantly, a small black cat with a patch of white on her chest climbed into Courage's lap. She purred and layed her head back on Courage's shoulder. The volunteer said this is 'Mama'. I asked how old she was and she said she had been fostering her for about 6 months, and she guessed she was 6 months old when she was brought to the shelter.

I said, I guess she is called 'Mama' because she had babies. The volunteer said no, actually, as far as she knew she had never had babies. She said what happened is that she was such a sweet and loving cat that they put her in with young kittens who didn't have a mother, and she would lay and let them suckle, even though she had no milk. They said they fed the babies with bottles and then put them in with 'Mama' to sleep with her, that she comforted them.

I couldn't help but be amazed at how Courage and 'Mama' seem to take to each other. The cat was laying in Courages arms like a baby and purring and looking up at her like a long, lost, friend.
I asked Courage if this was the kitty she wanted to adopt and she said yes. But, she's not a kitten, she is one year old. Courage said she didn't care. Seeing them together really just tugged at my heart. It was like they knew each other already!

I told the volunteer we would like to take 'Mama' home with us and that is when I notice she was watching Courage and the black kitty, and she had tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong, and she said nothing. That she was going to miss 'Mama'. That she had fostered her for 6 months and she was so afraid that no one was ever going to adopt her. I told her if she was that attached to her, maybe we shouldn't take her. She said oh no, if she's not adopted soon, she would be put down.

I didn't really understand. I don't know what the rules are about fostering. Can they only foster one for so long. If she was so attached to this cat, couldn't she adopt her herself? Maybe she had already adopted several others and was at her limit of how many pets she felt like she could take. I don't know. I just know her heart was breaking.

The whole time I filled out paperwork, this woman wept. She had me crying! I kept asking her, are you sure? She turned and looked at Courage, still sitting up there in that cage on a shelf, with 'Mama' on her lap. She said, 'Look at them. It's like they are meant to be together. I have never seen her act this way with no one else before. Mama has found someone, and someone has found Mama. She is going home to people who will love her and take good care of her.' With that she turned to give me a meaningful look and I nodded that yes, she would be loved and taken care of.

With many tears, the woman held 'Mama' again and told her good-bye. I told her we would let her know how she was doing soon. She told me about Blacky's allergies and that she would have to have an allergy shot ever so often, and made me promise to do that. I did. And I promised to have her 'fixed' soon so she wouldn't have babies.

'Mama' went home with us that day and instantly became a member of our family. We had only had her two days when I took her to the vet to be 'fixed'. I cried when I left her that morning. I felt like she thought she had been abandoned again. When I picked her up that afternoon she looked up at me from the carrier with sleepy eyes and then slept all the way home. Courage couldn't hardly wait to get home from school and see her kitty again.

Courage renamed 'Mama' Midnight. She didn't seem like a 'Mama' to us; we'd never seen her with kittens. But not long after that, Courage called her Blacky, and it stuck. She has been Blacky ever since, except when she goes to the vet, then her 'official' name is Midnight.

The first few years Blacky lived with us, she had many flare ups with her allergies. Her little chin would get bald, she would sneeze and get watery eyes, and get a sore on the top of her spine just behind her head. We would take her for a shot and she would be fine for awhile. Our vet told us to buy an expensive food that she would take one sniff of and start scratching around her food bowl like it was poop or something! He told us to use a glass or metal bowl for food and water, that plastic would aggrivate her allergies!

One time her sore on her back got so bad, it got infected. It was a bloodly, oozy sore. She couldn't reach it with her mouth to bite and chew it, but she somehow got her back claws up there and scratched it good! So we went back to the vet and he gave her some shots and gave us pills to give her.

If you have never given a cat a pill, then you have no idea how nearly impossible that can be. WE wrapped Blacky in a towel and I held her like a foot ball and pried her mouth open with one hand and shoved the pill in with the other. She would spit it right back out. I tried hiding it in her food. She refused to eat. I had Courage hold her, wrapped in towel, on her back like a baby and attempted to drop the pill down her throat. Ha! She growled at me like a demon! That is the only time I ever got so mad at her that I threatened her with physical harm. I would never hurt her, but she made me so angry! Courage NEVER lets me forget it either!

Blacky sleeps on Courage's bed, on her own pillow next to Courage's pillow. She loves only Courage. She lets Courage hold her like a baby. She lays up on Courage's shoulder and purrs like no body's business. If Courage pays attention to other cats we have (or have had), she pouts.

Blacky has been scared of the Hubster from day one. He has never yelled at her or swatted at her or chased her or anything that I know of, but she is scared to death of him. If she is down stairs when he comes home from work, she scoots upstairs the second she hears his van coming down our street.

She will tolerate other people besides Courage picking her up, to an extent. Mostly, she stiffens up and emits short, stressful, meowks, until you feel sorry for and put her down.

When Courage is gone overnight, Blacky will come to me to get some petting and loving. She only wants it for a few minutes and then she goes on about her business. When Courage and I both are gone for a few days, she will come downstairs when Hubster feeds her and Lex. I guess she realizes he is her lifeline during those times.

Blacky loves to sit and watch for squirrels, chipmonks, and birds out the back window. She does a funny thing with her mouth when she sees them. Her teeth chatters and she does the short, stuttering, meowks.

Sometimes Blacky finds a hair scrunchy and sits over it and meows. She'll tote it around the house, drop it and meow.

A few years after we got Blacky, we adopted a teeny, tiny, kitten that we named Bitty (his story to come in the future). If Blacky, or 'Mama', as she was originally called, had motherly instincts before, they completely went out the window upon Bitty's arrival. She hissed at him, slapped at him, and was generally miserable with him around for the first month at least! Years later though, she, Bitty and Siamese could all be found curled around each other while laying in a spot of sunshine streaming through a window.

She rarely has allergy flare ups anymore. I think she has mostly outgrown them. Occassionaly her 'eyebrow' area and chin will look bare. But no sores. She does get a cough now and then, but I think that may be a hairball trying to dislodge.

She does throw up her food now and again. It's amazing how the throw-up is invisible to everyone in this house but me. Other people in the house step over it all day long like it's not even there. Occassionally the Hubster has found it - with his foot.

She has a fuzzy rat thing that she carries from room to room and meows over too.

Her bestest trick is 'dead kitty'. When we are eating dinner she starts by sitting and staring at us, hoping we'll toss her a tidbit. When that doesn't work, she lays herself down on the floor and plays dead. If we ignore her, she rolls over on her back and 'strikes a pose'. The pose usually finds her completely on her back. Head and front legs pointed in one direction, belly and rear legs twisted and pointed in the opposite direction. She looks like the poor cats you see on the road that tried to outrun a car and didn't make it. She looks like road kill, without the blood and guts! When that happens we start saying, Oh! Poor Blacky! She got hit by a car! and Poor Baaa-Baaaack, she's a dead kitty! At these comments she will open one eye to see if we are pinching off a bit of food to throw her. Of course when you toss her a little bite of something she 'magically' comes to life again!

When we got Blacky, we already had Siamese (her story is coming soon!). I can't really remember, but I think they hissed at each other a few days, avoided each other for awhile, and eventually became somewhat friends. She was very curious about Hammy, the hamster, and would sniff him and lay down and let him crawl on and around her. But we never left her alone with him, just in case! She was curious about the gold fish, but not nearly as curious as Siamese (like I said, her story coming soon and it involves the gold fish!).

Blacky is strictly an indoor only cat. But one time she slipped outside unnoticed. When I finally did notice her missing, I went outside to search for her after checking all the indoor hiding places. There she sat, in the back yard, on the retaining wall. Sitting as pretty as you please like she was used to going out and basking in the sunlight and air all the days of her life. I called her and she just looked at me and blinked that slow, lazy eye blink of hers. When I went towards her she ran from me! I had to go inside and get Courage to come and get her. Of course, Courage walked right up to her and picked her up.

Blacky was approximately one year old when we adopted her on Courage's 7th birthday. We have had her for 11-1/2 years, so that would make her about 12 - 1/2 years old. She has shrunken somehow. She's never been a BIG cat. She's always had short legs and a short tail and a small round head. But she used to have 'heft' to her. Now, like my Granny did when she got old, she has managed to 'shrink' to a little bitty kitty. Courage doesn't like it when me and Arthur say 'Poor Baaa-Baaaack! She's so old!' We don't mean it in a mean way. Courage doesn't like it when we say 'Poor Bracky, she's just a itty bitty Bracky now'. We don't mean to be mean, it's just a way of expressing we've noticed the changes that age has brought to her. It's sort of a way to gently say, one day, she won't be here.

When that day comes, it will be a very sad day indeed. For she came to my youngest daughter, Courage, at a time when Courage desperately wanted her own cat, like her big sister. She wanted a pet, and gained a friend. Courage was so incredibly sensitive and quiet, and into her life came this little furry package, so full of BIG love and Courage did not hestitate for a minute to show love to this little being! The instant they met, they bonded. The day we brought that cat home, Blacky found a home, a friend, a mother, in Courage. Courage is as protective over Blacky as a mother is a child.

I hope they have many more years together.