The Original 7 Cats

We've had so many pets here at the farm in the past 20 years, it's hard to keep track of 'em, much less remember which I've written about for the pet thread.

But I know I haven't told the story of the Original 7. Forgive the tl;dr, but it's seven cats' tails, after all.

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By twists of fate, our family started in Chicago. We never had pets in the city. Should've at least had a cat, I think now, but we had an apartment - I just couldn't see having a pet without the freedom of a big yard. Kids asked for a dog, but I knew who would've been out walking that dog in knee-deep blizzard, picking up poop in a baggie, and it wouldn't've been them.

Finally, though, Fate smiled upon us and we moved to rural Oklahoma - moved back, for Milady and me, moved from their home town for the kidlets.

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One year and a few days after we moved back, suddenly: kittens. We had two mama barn cats that had litters days apart, one litter of four cats, one of three. We ended up keeping all seven, the beginning of our Too Many Cats days.

The trio was: a wonderful gray-brindle male the kids named Zeus; his similarly-stripey but almost greenish-seeming sister, Aquata; and the runt of the litter, a stripey orange girl that the kids' cousin got to name - Tigger. (By these names you can tell the difference between our kids' home-schooling in classics and the public-schooled cousin.)

The quartet was: a mostly-black calico, Athena; a medium-mixed calico, Patches; a mostly-white calico, Diana; and a gentle yellow cat our daughter especially claimed, and named Caramel.

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Diana, when still mostly a kitten, got her neck broken jumping into a slamming car door. That was the first time I held a creature in my arms and watched as the light went out in its eyes.

One son had a special attachment to that white kitten who his brother accidentally slammed the car door on, and, later on, was especially fond of the all-white kitten of the triplets, I wrote about last week,* that his sister accidentally stepped on and killed. Heartbroke twice, that poor boy, and while he never talked about it, probably found it a bit hard to forgive his siblings, even knowing accidents happen.

* http://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=363043#c25196465

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Aquata was the next to go, when still pretty young, like a teenager. I vividly remember driving up to the house, and Milady meeting me, her face a look of horror, crying, "I think Aquata is dying!" We rushed to the back, in time to see her take her last few, coughing breaths, and she expired. She was such a great cat - when you held her, she hugged you like a monkey.

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Tigger got the nickname of The Singing Kitty after chomping on some garlic (we think) and meyowling for quite a while. Longest-lived of all of the Original 7, finally just expired one day.

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Caramel disappeared for weeks, and came back with a broken leg - I wrote about her on an open thread back in December.* Actually got her leg fixed!
*http://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=360438#c24513165

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IIRC, Zeus, Athena, Patches, and Caramel all just disappeared during some of the rough days for our family - maybe because we weren't at home as much for them, maybe because we didn't yet have a free-roaming dog to ward off the predators. Anyway, lots of sadness about all that.

They're all so long gone now that the generation of cats we had after them is all gone now. Miss each one of them so much. But I'll always treasure the days when our life in the country was new, the kids were young, and we had our seven kitties.