We inherited Pearly from my mother when she passed away in 1992. Pearly was about two years old then...Mother had taken her in as a kitten, a stray. We figure Pearly's mom was a Siamese and her father was a "travelin' man"...or some combination thereof. She was named for the color of her coat.When she was less than a year old, she was injured when some roofing shingles were dropped on her by workers repairing Mother's roof. Her hip was broken and she couldn't move. The vet suggested putting her down, but Mother refused and, instead, took Pearly into her own bed and slowly nursed her back to health. I say this to indicate that Pearly was never a "normal" cat...she didn't have a "normal" kittenhood...didn't know too much about how to play or be very "cuddly"...never was what you could call "sociable". Pearly would bite you if you displeased her!When my wife and I stopped by the vets office to pick up Pearly's records on our way home with her (howling loudly in her carrier), the first thing we noticed in her folder was the the vet's description of our new charge as "Fractious"...and, yes, it was capitalized and underlined several times!Over the next 15 years or so, Pearly condesended to accept us as her new caretakers, allowed us to join her in our bed each night and made our home hers. She never changed very much...that was left for us to accomplish. And changed we were, in our hearts, in our habits, in ways both subtle and profound. This imperious, queenly, funny, needy, fractious, and, underlying it all, frightened creature blessed our lives and our home in more ways than I could possibly enumerate were I to write a thousand articles!
No comments:
Post a Comment