OZZIE

I am NOT a cat person.  I do not like cats.  I find them cold, rude even, uppity and untrainable.  

They are convinced they are the most important creature in the house and never let you forget it.  One minute they snuggle up next to you wanting some lovin’ and the next minute they turn and walk away from you as if you are as insignificant as the flea on their butt.  

Ozzie, a brown tabby cat came into our home 14 years ago against my better judgement.   Not being a cat person I was talked into fostering him until someone adopted him.  He was a kitten and very cute so I was assured that someone would adopt him quickly.  After six weeks of still no one adopting him, Jake said to me "Mom, you know he's our cat now, right?"  We adopted him and I became a reluctant “cat person”.  He was born around the same month we lost Zoey, our lab.  We think he was Zoey reincarnate.  Zoey, Ozzie, Ozzie, Zoey -- get it? He loved the water and could be seen roaming through our creek and he acted much more like a dog than a cat.  He never stopped hunting and was presumptuous enough to bring us many of his treasures.  One more reason for me to not like cats.   He was the first male pet I allowed in the house.  Living with four sons and a husband I made the rule that all pets had to be female.  As the years went by I tried not to like him but I failed miserably.  He took up residence in a special place in my heart.  

The last time I saw Ozzie he was lying on his back in the sun legs stretched out head thrown back in silent joy.  I rubbed his tummy and he woke and headed out the cat door.  I left for work, returned from work and didn’t give him a second thought.  By evening - dinnertime - I still had not seen him but my Mom radar had not yet been triggered.  Jon came home, filled his bowl and asked if I had seen Ozzie.  By this time he usually had come in for his evening belly rub, sitting on top of the couch his head lying on one of our shoulders, purring, winding down for the evening.  No matter, he has probably been distracted by a hunt.  Surely he will bring us one of his gifts. We will have to keep our eyes open, don’t want to step on anything gross in the morning but by morning there was still no sign.  His dinner bowl was untouched.  But he had done this before - disappeared for 3 days and then sauntered in one evening like a teenage boy coming in after curfew - arrogant and uncaring.  We scolded him, told him how much he had worried us and he looked at us not one bit sorry, no apology, no explanation,  and went back out to hunt some more.  

But this felt different.  Two more days went by and now we were worried.  We started to make rounds throughout the neighborhood, calling his name, asking neighbors if they had seen him.  We stopped by the Humane Society to see if someone had turned him in.  At night I could hear the coyotes howl and it left a lump in my throat.  He’s too smart, too quick, too clever for them.  As soon as I walked in the house at the end of each day after work I knew he had not returned.  I couldn’t feel his presence.   The house felt more empty.  By day four we were putting up signs and posting on social media.  Surely someone had seen Ozzie, a cat can’t just disappear.  No word.  Again we headed out to the neighborhood and I felt the tears well up.  All of a sudden I was imagining every parent who had ever lost a child - the growing feeling of panic, the racing heart, the unimaginable fear.  But this was just a cat.  A cat that I didn’t even want.  A cat I reluctantly adopted because no one else wanted him.  How can I be having such strong emotions for a cat?

Then the hunt for Ozzie shifted from a search and rescue to recovery.   We had resolved ourselves to his death because surely he would have returned if he could.  We had been told that cats do that.  They leave to die.  They find a quiet place to lay down their tired bodies and die in peace and quiet away from ministering hands and sad humans.  But surely Ozzie wouldn’t do that.  He loved us.  He would want to be with us in his dying days, wouldn’t he?  Jon goes down under the house to see if he is there.  No sign.  I search under every bush in the vicinity of our house to no avail.  We started to realize that this cat, who we never wanted to begin with had infiltrated our lives with unconditional love, dead mice and attitude and we will never see him again. We feel less and less hopeful that we will ever find him.  And as the days pass so does the feeling of urgency as we grapple with this loss of a family member.  To this day we still expect him to saunter through the cat door, sassy and brazen, fall down in front of us with his belly exposed waiting for his belly rub.  Ozzie was the best cat a “dog person” could ever hope to have.