It has been a month or so since we last saw our mama cat, Emma (aka Itty Bitty). I think we all know she probably met her demise in the woods, facing off with some nasty critter, but the good thing about not finding your cat dead in the road or in our case, your decapitated chickens in their nesting box, is that you can live in a suspended state of disbelief and imagine the nice new home she has curled up on someone else's dining room table to rest after enjoying someone else's chicken leg she swiped off of someone else's counter.
Prince was the first one who mentioned the fact that he had not seen Itty Bitty for a while. "Do you think she is dead?" he asked.
"I honestly don't know" was my reply and I really don't. Given the fact that I did have a pet cat rise from the grave once before, it is hard to say for sure.
When Prince and James Dean were babies we lived in New Haven, CT for a couple of years. We had two cats at the time and the female cat, Petunia was not happy. She took off out the door within the first few days of moving in. The next day, as I was pulling out of the driveway with the boys, I noticed a dead cat in the middle of the road about 10 yards up the street. Not wanting my precious babies to see their cat as road kill, I got to our destination and tearfully called the husband to tell him what had happened.
He went out and retrieved the remains and gave her a proper burial in our new backyard. I was sad but somehow comforted by the fact that I could look out the kitchen window and see her little grave.
A few weeks passed and busy with unpacking and taking care of a two year old and an infant, I didn't give much thought to Petunia. Then one day I glanced out the kitchen window and there she was, strolling across the backyard just inches from where we had buried her. Either she had been resurrected or we buried the wrong cat. Not wanting to dig up the remains, I decided to go with resurrection. You can see why I am able to still hold out hope for our Itty Bitty.
Prince went searching around the property and in the barn to see if he could find Itty Bitty, but there was no sign. James Dean and Scrappy seemed to be oblivious to the fact that they had not seen her for quite a while. They played with the kittens without noticing the missing maternal presence that was never far away from her now much larger offspring.
I was going to just let dead kitties lie, but I was more than a little curious as to what they thought happened to the cat, so I decided to ask:
Me: "Hey, has anyone seen Itty Bitty Kitty recently?"
JD&SD: "No"
Me: "Where do you think she is?"
Prince: "I think she is living in the woods hunting and climbing trees."
JD: "Yeah. She is living there and mating with her new husband, JFK. (wtf?)
Prince: "But she is fixed."
SD: "I think she is living in a blue and green house with no other cats so she doesn't have to share her food."
JD: "She and JFK probably have a new family."
Prince: "But she is fixed."
Scrappy Doo turns to walk away, "She could be dead. OR she could be working with Santa to get all the toys ready."
Wherever she is, I am going to miss that loud bratty little cat who left our lives as suddenly as she entered. She gave us four adorable kittens and one of the funniest popcorn bowl memories to date: Watching a 50lb dog pee on the floor for fear of incurring the wrath of the 5lb mama who didn't like the way the dog was looking at her kittens.
Farewell Itty Bitty. I hope you are working hard with Santa and will get back to your blue and green house soon so you can mate with JFK in the woods even though you are fixed.
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