If you read my blog, you know I’ve given up writing my personal thoughts here. I had written hundreds of them in the early years of the blog, but have lost my mojo in recent years. This Father’s Day made me rethink my message.

Last winter a very thin small black cat kept walking around our back yard. If you know one thing about me, I hope it is this. I cannot let an animal starve, and this animal was clearly there. We feed 2,000 pounds of corn to deer every year for the same reason. When I was a kid, my dad explained why we have to have deer hunters. He said if we did not, the herds would get too large and either the deer starve, get hit by cars, or are hunted to keep the population in check. I always thought there should be another option…so when Rich and I got married and bought a house that was backed by woodlands, we decided on what we’ll call “the new plan.” We found a farmer who sold us corn and every year, like clockwork, the day after Thanksgiving, we buy our “deer corn.” We’ve fed deer for over 30 years and are happy to do so. So when we saw this small starving feral black cat, we had to do something. My girlfriend gave us a cat house and filled it with straw.. Not hay, as it gets gross…Did I know that before, no, but now I guess I’m a cat lady. She/he used it a few times in really cold weather (we live in what’s called the snow belt, where we get a lot of snow, and it’s cold for up to 7 months a year.) We started buying cases of wet cat food and big bags of dry food for it. It wasn’t starving or freezing on our watch.

We didn’t want to name him/her as we didn’t want to bond with it, so we called him/her “Your Cat.” So if you came to visit us, we’d say “your cat’s outside” hoping someone would take him/her home with them.

Then later this spring, a large gray cat showed up, also starving, and we started feeding him as well. We knew he was a male because we saw him back up to a wall and pee. One afternoon, we saw him mount our little black cat and decided she was a female, but we’d have to wait to know for sure. Both cats were feral and wouldn’t let us near them, but over time the small black cat was getting closer and closer to Rich, his feeder. We’d been feeding her consistently for at least three months, and decided we should get him/her spayed. We have a local group called Hog Heaven Animal Rescue, where they spay and neuter cats, give them their shots, deworm them, give them a month’s flea and tick medicine, and cut their nails for $105, which is a bargain, all things considered. To trap a feral cat, you use a humane trap and put their food inside. They eat, you close the door and have to immediately cover the entire cage with a cloth, as cats will try to hard to escape, they can actually harm themselves.

Unfortunately, the very first day our little black cat let us pet her was also the day we had to trap her, and it was heartbreaking. We waited until she had finished eating before slowly closing the door, and then she went nuts, trying to break free. We couldn’t get the cover on it fast enough, as by then I was already crying from her panic and the need to escape. I thought people were making it up when they said cats will actually try to kill themselves to escape..I was mistaken. With the cover on the cage, she eventually calmed and we put her in our garage in a safe spot to be spayed the next morning. It was a bad week, as we had to euthanize our beautiful Bella, our almost 13 year old golden retriever the Friday before the cat’s surgery on Wednesday. I told Rich that if the cat turned out to be a girl, I was going to name it, but wouldn’t tell him the name. Bella was Rich’s dog in every way and I think in some way, Bella sent this little black cat for Rich to love and I wanted to honor that love.

Everything went well with the surgery, but when we went to pick her up, they said she tested positive for lactation, meaning, she had been nursing kittens. They asked had she gained weight, no…had she been missing for periods of time, no…well they’ve had false positives before so that must be what it is. They said keep her in a safe place for up to two days so she could heal and get the anesthesia out of her system, so we did. That was May 18th. On the 17th in the evening, we caught her, and then didn’t release her until May 20th. If she had kittens, which we truly believed she did not, they could never have survived for almost four days without her.

She forgave us for the surgery and subsequent jail time, and became more and more friendly, especially with Rich. She’d follow him around our back yard and rub his legs for attention, and nip him when he didn’t rub her as much as she desired. He never had a cat, so when a dead mole showed up on our back patio, he didn’t know it was his first gift of love from his new girl. I named her Ella after Bella and Rich calls her Ellie and is smitten with her, just like he was with Bella, which makes me so happy as he was devastated by her loss. Ella made Rich want to sit on the patio and rub her until she tired of him, and that didn’t happen often. She’d come to the top of the steps and look through the door’s window to see if he was coming out soon, and if he was bringing food, and boy can she eat. She never seemed to gain any weight, but was eating two full cans of cat food a day plus a lot of dry food and cat treats. We kept telling ourselves she was just wormed with her surgery, so she was finally gaining the nutrients she’d lost all this time from worms and a diet that wasn’t consistent before we started feeding her.

And then came Father’s Day. I was standing in our bedroom and Rich whisper/shouted for me to come to the sunroom as fast and quietly as possible. Of course I was too late. I said “what am I looking for?” He said “Kittens!” Our sweet little black cat brought Rich two little fuzzy black/gray babies and was so proud. We don’t know where she had kept them before now, but since this was now her home, she moved them to our covered patio behind a huge Rubbermaid storage bin and when we would sit on the patio, she’d call to them and they would come out to be with her. They are truly miracles, as they are still nursing and yet they lived for almost four days without her or any food while she was being spayed. We’ve only had them in our lives for a couple of days, but it seems like much longer, and now the process begins to find someone worthy of these two little miracles. Someone who will love them, keep them in their home and most importantly, spay or neuter them.

We had arranged to have the gray cat neutered as well, but he (like a lot of deadbeat dads) hit the road, and we haven’t seen him since making his neuter appointment. If he ever comes back for any length of time, we’ll definitely get him neutered as well. He’s not our priority though, Ella is. And to honor her and the sacrifices she’s made to keep her two miracles alive, we have to find someone to love them like we love their mother.

We haven’t celebrated Father’s Day since losing Rich’s dad a few years ago, but Ella knew exactly what Rich needed to start to heal from losing Bella, to fill his heart with new love, and for that, I can’t thank her enough.

You never know the difference a day can make, or a small black feral cat named Ella. Here are photos of Ella and her miracle babies.

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