Oklahoma Dreaming: Waiting for Rosie
by Donna Schoenkopf
It’s the fourth day.
Rosie the Cat has been gone for four days.
It feels like it felt years ago, waiting for my (then) husband, anxiously awake in the dead of night, straining at every sound.
My stomach is clenched. My emotions swing from a deep feeling of loss to anger at her timidity with “strangers” to guilt over not having held her enough to let her know how much I loved her.
I adopted her five years ago, in San Pedro, at a pet store. Cost me $90, which was (and is) a hefty sum. I decided to get a cat because I had mice. They were in full force—leaving droppings in the kitchen drawers and setting up housekeeping in the broiler of the stove, yuck!
So even though I was horrendously allergic to cats, it was time for one.
My experience with rodents is full and rich. Years ago in California, at the edge of a lovely meadow, stood my house ... and rats. I believe they were Norwegian rats. That’s what I was told. There were so many of them that they literally swung gaily from the potted plants on my patio. Once I counted thirty, doing flips and half-gainers, like a Rat Circus, out there.
Something had to be done. But after traps failed miserably, and I eliminated poison as a method of eradication, I found that cats were the simple and elegant solution. It seems that even if cats don’t get all those mice, they become completely aware that a cat is in the house and they split for more favorable climes.
My teenaged boy cats LOVED those rats. Once I saw them playing with the headless body of a rat like a volleyball, batting it back and forth to each other, never letting its rotund body touch the ground.
Hilarious. If you’re into that kind of thing.
And so, years later, with another rodent problem, I adopted Rosie. Her full name is Rosa Luxemburg, Communist heroine, martyred and thrown into an icy river. Look her up. She was really, really cool.
But my Rosie is no courageous fighter for justice. She is shy beyond belief. Something traumatic must have happened to her as a kitten. Her round, Keane-like face, her camouflage coat, the crook at the end of her tail, were all fetching and adorable. But her personality was that of a frightened, distrusting, angst-driven cat.
I couldn’t hold her much. Asthma would break out in my tired old lungs. So we cohabited, with occasional time on my lap, followed by me changing clothes and washing hands.
Fidel the Cat (yes, Fidel Castro) came to live with us, and to be Rosie’s constant companion after I found his flea-bitten
starved kitten-self in the parking lot of my inner city school. He loved me with a love so fine and high, that I fear I shall never be loved like that by another living being again.
They both moved to Oklahoma with me.
Fidel was “disappeared” the second day out of the house here at Chigger Lake. Whatever got him—coyote, owl, pit bull—is still lurking out there to get cats. Again. When conditions are right.
So, I am leery about Rosie wandering around at night and don’t relax until she makes it through the door, safe and snug. We cuddle now. The allergy shots are working.
When she is gone at night, I can think of nothing else. Thoughts of animals grabbing and thrashing her until her lifeless body hangs limply from their powerful jaws haunt me. I am tense. Really tense. Anxiety is my middle name and stomach-clenching and teeth-grinding is my game.
And this time she’s been gone for four days. Yes, I’ll say it again.
This time I am really scared.
It’s been a full week. The Fourth of July and all its celebration isn’t really a lot of fun for household pets. So you can imagine Rosie’s dismay—nay, sheer terror.
It all began with the visit from Annie, my darling sister. Yes, the same sister who built (with my feeble help) the deck which runs the length of my southern wall, the length of my eastern and western walls, and greets me out the back door of my kitchen on the north.
Annie arrived in the evening. Rosie hid under the bed. But she couldn’t deal with the presence of a human being in the house that she didn’t know intimately.
She meowed piteously and so I let her out. She’d return, I thought. I hoped. I would let Nature take its course.
As I thought, she came home the second day after Annie’s visit. Came sidling up alongside the southern wall, past all those sliding glass windows, looking for me to open up for dinner. But Diego the Dog, relishing his new-found territorial spirit, lunged at her from inside, banging up against that wall of glass, growling and barking in such a killer way that she instantly split, tearing off down the hill.
Then ANOTHER attack by Diego. I had let him out that same night because he saw something outside. He went crashing through the underbrush after something. Could it have been Rosie?
She has handled Diego’s cat-chasing before. So ... she’ll be back, I thought.
But no.
There has just been so much action. Annie, fireworks, Diego, and then my darling nephews with their darling friends, spending the night.
A lot to handle for my little Rosie.
But more ... The Night of the Possum.
After an orgy of fireworks at Lynn’s house, we all returned home the night of the 4th. I had hoped Rosie would have come in through the crack in the sliding glass door I had left open for her (even though my fear of snakes getting in was strong) to get some nourishment, but her food was still in the bowl.
After snacks and conversation we all climbed into our various beds, and went to sleep.
Until about two in the morning.
Diego, again. Lunging at the windows, growling and barking. All of us jumped up, alarmed. (Deep sleep, huge barking and lunging, instant awake.)
I immediately thought of Rosie and ran to look out into the darkness at what was out there. A possum.
I slid open the door to get a better look and Diego sprang into action, chasing the possum around and around the cottonwood tree. The possum couldn’t get enough of a head start to get up the tree, so he would crouch and growl and make horrible noises and threats at Diego, and Diego would rampage and snarl and carry on.
I ran to get a long stick (broom) and the boys yelled to not let the possum bite me and I flailed away at both of the animals until finally the possum got up that tree and was safe.
Diego sat underneath him, eyes on the prize, for the rest of the night.
The next day the boys went home and life continued as usual.
Except Rosie never came home.
I waited all day. No sign. I called for her every hour or so. I looked. I listened. Nothing. Diego decided he liked being home for a change, instead of hanging out with Sally the Dog down the road. So his presence was constantly in and out, a horrible threat to poor Rosie.
All last night, waiting. I left the door open a crack. (If there aren’t snakes in this house yet, there WILL be.)
Nothing.
And this morning, as the sun came up and flooded the house with its happy glow, no Rosie on my bed, purring, asking politely for her breakfast. Her sweet face—absent.
And I sit here typing these thoughts and wanting my cat back, safe and sound, with me.
Come home, Rosie. I love you.
donna@fourstory.org
Comments
So sorry! I know you feel guilty, but don’t be so hard on yourself. You gave her a good life, as much as she could handle, and allowed her to be her little cat self.
2009-07-07 by betsyA friend of mine had a cat that his mother insisted on letting out for an hour or so every day. This was on the edge of Mission Gorge in San Diego, and one day she didn’t come back. He got another cat which is now 15 years old. She is very energetic, clean and happy, and only left the house (well, she was in a trailer for awhile) in San Diego for the flight to the house in Wisconsin. She doesn’t seem to miss the outdoors a bit.
2009-07-08 by Gary Richardi guess it’s all about the human who has the cat or dog or whatever. i would hate being in a small area for all my life. i transfer this onto my pet. i let it outside to be free.
i’ve never kept my cats or dogs indoors or in a locked backyard. some have died young, some old.
but, as i told betsy, i accidentally came upon her one afternoon, not too long ago, sitting on a large flat rock on the side of a hill, in a place i don’t often go, with her eyes half closed, just feeling the day. she was so peaceful and happy.
who knows. we just do what we must do.
2009-07-08 by Donna SchoenkopfOh Donna! I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. I’m SUPER attached to my cat as she is to me....she’s 13 years old now so we have a strong bond. I really hope she makes it back home soon - I suppose she’s out having some nice cat adventures: chasing birds, butterflies, grasshoppers, etc. Let us know when she gets back.
2009-07-08 by Violetayeah...the bond is so very strong. there is a telepathic relationship. i could read the expressions on her face. (don’t tell me cats don’t have expressive faces...they do.)
i know what your cat means to you. thanks for your kind thoughts. beautiful thoughts.
2009-07-08 by Donna Schoenkopf
Oh, NO!
2009-07-07 by rebecca