You, Me and William Henry Harrison

I settled into the chair, preparing for what would be just one of many in a long-running series of counseling sessions. I was going to tell all, I was going to spill my guts (excuse the roughness of the phrase) but it was going to be a no-holds barred encounter with my therapist. I knew it, and my therapist sensed it. She could tell, she could always tell.

Thirty minutes later, I finished recounting my current worry, I looked directly at my counselor. Her green eyes stared back at me, signaling that the session was coming to a close. Time was up. That was OK by me. I was tired of talking, anyway. She was probably just as tired of listening.

She got up, stretched, and rolled over. She wanted her belly scratched. My cat, Poker, has a double role: my pet and my confidante. Since her arrival nearly nine years ago, as a six-month-old stray kitten, Poker not only adapted herself to living with our family and in our home, she also adopted me as a friend. She’s always been ready to listen--no appointment necessary. Whether simply recalling the day’s events, or talking out a specific issue, Poker’s always been right there, ready to listen.

As I scratched Poker’s belly, and stroked her head, my thoughts drifted back to the events that paved the path that led Poker to our door.

Lucky, our then-five-year-old cat, was missing. This we knew for a fact. We came home from work and there was no “Oh, you're home” welcome from our beloved little feline, who would, on most evenings, wait by the back door until someone arrived home, rub against The Person’s legs, and go off and take a little nap before returning to beg for some table scraps (chicken or turkey, thank you!) from our evening meal. He always was there, willing to let you scratch his head, but as soon as the chicken ran out, so did he.

He is actually my son’s cat, and he makes that quite clear. He lays protectively across Jeff’s chest while he’s sleeping and meows a awarning not to wake him up. During the rest of the day, he tolerates my husband and me, although he likes to cozy up to me, usually right about dinnertime. Then he spends the rest of the evening either with my son or sleeping off the chicken that I’d slip to him. But not so on this cold wintry January night. Lucky was nowhere to be found.

Jeff and Walter went outside in the cold, blustery weather that night. Trudging up and down the street, then finding no sign of him, they turned to the woods. Maybe Lucky had regretted his impulsive decision, and took refuge in the woods somewhere. Calling his name, their voices returning to them in the gusts of wind, they returned to the house discouraged and downhearted. Lucky had done this before, but he had always had the foresight and good sense to plan it as an overnight outing during the summer.

We all hoped and prayed that he would show up at our back door in the morning. I pictured the cat returning to us wet, cold, bedraggled. I shivered under the covers as I thought of our poor cat in that weather.

Getting through the next five days was painful and slow. It included more outdoor searches, putting flyers in mailboxes on all of the surrounding streets, calling area animal shelters, and placing an ad in the local newspaper. We even visited the local animal shelter on Sunday, even though it was closed. Jeff looked in the window, but Lucky was still nowhere to be found.

I kept calling the area vets and animal shelters, in the hope that someone would bring Lucky in, since the time of my last phone call. I called the local shelter again from work on Wednesday afternoon. I felt helpless--we had tried everything to keep everyone alerted to the fact that our Lucky was missing. But no one had responded. So, here I was, calling the local shelter--again. Recognizing my all-too- familiar voice, the man who answered my call was rather gruff. “No, your cat’s still not here,” he grumbled into the mouthpiece. Taken aback by his unseemly attitude, I asked what else I could do. He grumbled back, “If you really want your cat back, then I suggest praying to St. Francis.”

This advice, given not as a friendly, helpful suggestion, but as a sarcastic “I-want-you -off-the -phone-and-stop-calling-me” off-handed comment was taken at face value. I hung up the phone and said a little prayer to St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

Dinner that night was terribly strange--I had made chicken, Lucky’s favorite. No one was very hungry; the three of us sat around the table, talked about where to look next for Lucky, and prepared to listen to another night of the wind howling through the trees, with the on-again, off-again staccato rhythm of rain on the roof. And another night without Lucky.

All of a sudden, I heard a faint cry that I recognized and identified immediately. “I hear Lucky!” I hollered, perhaps a bit too loudly. Scoffing, Walter and Jeff dismissed what I heard as wishful thinking--until they heard it, too. The cries had gotten just loud enough that, despite the wind and occasional rain, even the skeptics posing as my family, could hear them.

Jeff and Walter jumped up, looked at each other, and apparently mentally telepathed a plan to each other. Without saying a word, they ran in opposite directions but both with the ultimate goal of approaching Lucky, who by that time was thought to be the source of the cries on the deck. In other words, I was right. They just didn’t come right out and say so. But, there was no time to set the record straight right then.

Before long, I heard the sliding door open, but no voices. My heart sank. Had I mistaken the wind for a little cat’s cry for help? Then little cat footsteps were thumping their way up the stairs. Before I saw him, I heard the familiar rhythm of his steps up to the kitchen. What shape would he be in? Again, images of a thin, muddied, beleaguered cat flashed through my mind. Turning towards the steps, I was shocked by what I saw.

It was Lucky! Lucky was hungry, so I cut up some chicken for him. As he wolfed down his food, I saw what remarkably good shape he was in--he was a little thinner, to be sure, but he was not wet, not dirty, not even a piece of a leaf on him. Wherever he had been, he had been resourceful enough to choose a very good shelter, protecting him well from the elements.

Lucky was back, for which we were very grateful. But the newspaper ad was still was still running. Several days after Lucky’s fortuitous return, we received a phone call in response to our ad.

“I think I’ve found your missing cat,” a friendly voice on the other end of the phone line was telling me. “I’ve got a stray here who matches your description.”

“Thank you very much, “ I responded, “But our cat came home a couple of days ago.” Then, intrigued by the match in the descriptions of the two cats, I asked, “What is your cat like?”

From then on, Susan, the friendly voice on the phone and I became friends. We stayed in touch regarding the well-being of the stray cat.

By this time, August had rolled around. Susan called. She had another stray. This time, a small black and brown tortoise-shell kitten, about six months old. She had already been immunized, spayed and was ready for a home. The problem was: she had no home. The cat rescue person had no more room. After all the medical tests and immunizations, this poor little kitten, after surviving first as a stray, was headed for a shelter.

“A shelter?” I repeated. We both knew what that meant--an uncertain future for this little cat who already had a had a rough start in life. “Let me talk to Walter and Jeff and see what they say. Then, of course, there was the thought of introducing a new cat to Lucky. Curmudgeonly Lucky who barely tolerated anybody but Jeff in our house, as it was. But, I had to try.

After several family meetings, I was able to coax everyone into what was supposed to be a trial run. Lucky, as it turned out, would be casting the final vote. If the two cats could not get along after a few weeks, that would be paramount to a paws-down vote from Lucky, who was the self-proclaimed Only Cat of the house.

The rest is history. No, Lucky has never been too happy about the outcome of the trial run. But once in our house, Poker snuggled her way into our hearts, and hoped against hope that, especially in this case, opposites WOULD attract...eventually.

Ten years later, we’re still hoping. The cats amuse themselves by pick-up games of tag that start in the basement, wind through the house, up to Jeff’s room, where they switch and the chasee becomes the chaser. On most days, they tolerate each other well enough. On those other, less-tolerant days, well, it gives them enough exercise to give them reason enough to sleep away the rest of the day.

That was the winding path that had led Poker to our door. “So,” I thought to myself, “Lucky has only himself to blame for Poker’s being here. If not for his five-day disappearing act, I would never have met Susan, and Poker would never have even been in the running for Second Cat status here.”

From the moment I woke up that first morning after taking Poker home, and finding her sitting protective next to my pillow, purring a deep throaty purr, I knew I had found a new friend. We bonded immediately, and I talked to her all the time, so she could adapt herself more easily to her new surroundings.

Our friendship is one of unconditional acceptance. Poker likes me, and accepts me for who I am, blemishes and all. I think Poker is wonderful, even if her natural cat skills are not as sharp as they could be. I find her to be very entertaining. She makes all sorts of noises for me, kind of a mixture of a “meow” and a purr that she uses for me exclusively when she jumps up on my bed in the morning to greet me.

There is something quite vulnerable about her, as well. Unlike Lucky who, at age fifteen can still leap great heights quite gracefully, she will sit on the floor, measure the jump up to the nightstand, and over-estimating it, will skid across the top, and plop on the floor, just inches from where she started. An open door to the backyard still beckons to Lucky;it sends Poker in a panic, running in the opposite direction. But, what she lacks in physical skill, she more than makes up for as a caring friend.

We picked her up almost exactly at the mid-year point from my birthday. Since Susan had estimated Poker’s age to be six months, I wanted to share my birthday with her. I told Poker of my plan -- we would be sharing the day with William Henry Harrison, the US President. She purred her approval, and I’m sure he’d be proud to share his birthday with such a loving soul as Poker. She settled in the chair, half on my lap, half not.

She listens now as she did then, with a quiet patience.