A woman and girl were out for a walk on the road near their home in the country. In the distance, they saw an expensive car pull over in front of a country church. A woman got out, pulled a box out of the car, walked a few feet away, turned the box over to dump the contents, and returned to the car (with the box). The woman in the expensive car with a now-empty box drove away, heedless of the calls from the first woman and girl, who were now running to the scene.
They knew what they would find.
Three Beautiful Kittens
They were beautiful, and yet, the box had been more important to the woman in the expensive car.
The woman and girl carried them back to their house, made a nest for them under the front porch, and made a few calls. They couldn’t keep them. They hoped to find a friend who would. They found a friend who found a friend who agreed to make the drive (about a half hour) to see if maybe one could be folded into her household.
She arrived to find them tumbling around the yard, playing hard with one another. They stopped long enough to sit down and look up. They were in a line. Two beautiful dilute calico girls and a very handsome long-haired gray boy. They were named Kali, Ko and Mo, and of course that friend of a friend took all three.
Locked In The Bathroom Together
To bring them into the house, we started slow. They were locked in the bathroom (it’s a very big room) with litter, food and water. Almost the first thing Mo did was search out a spot – it was a floor register that would allow water to drain away – and squiggle his little butt down in preparation to pee. He was shocked to find himself whisked up and placed in the litter pan, but he did his business, and the rest is history. Three kittens learned within the first five minutes in their new home that poo-ing and pee-ing had a place.
Eventually, after check-ups, shots, and a couple of weeks of sniffing under the door, they were allowed into the whole house, and the whole house was never the same.
There was not a single spot in the house that wasn’t fair game for a pile of three kittens. They napped in every chair, in the bed, in every sunbeam, under every Christmas tree.
Let’s talk about Christmas. Every year, they would receive – for their very own use – a garland that went on the floor instead of on the tree. The three of them would work with that garland, moving it around on the floor, stopping, sitting, communicating with one another, moving it again… It went from room to room, down the stairs and up the stairs and down again.
Mo, who had become a big boy, chose the smallest Christmas tree to climb. The girls, also big, liked the largest one.
They Did Everything Together
Everything. They snuggled together during the day, slept together at night, played with their toys together, tried to stick three heads into one food dish or one water dish. (I got bigger dishes.)
Mo was the youngest, based on his personality, and he demanded special attention from his siblings. They would lick him all over, at least once a day, paying particular attention to the little round things that were growing on his underside. (When Mo was fixed, until the day he died, he would, on occasion, gaze at that space as if to say, “Where did they go?”)
They ignored their siblings, Tiger Lily and Little Socks, but they loved their cousin, Daphne, the big farm dog, who spent a great deal of time in the house. (Instead of at her own house down the road.)
As they got older, they changed, but some things remained the same. They might not sleep together during the day, but they still did at night. Kali and Ko learned to speak cat (meows, etc.), but Mo never advanced past their secret kitten language.
All Things Must End
Kali, Ko and Mo remain vibrant characters in the cozy mystery series, Tiger Lily’s Café, but… things change. Mo only lived to the age of five. Ko just left us a few months ago, at the age of 17. Kali is still with us, but I have to wonder sometimes what she thinks about having been abandoned by her litter mates. She is surrounded by other cats, but it can’t be the same.