It was a hot and oppressive afternoon in late June in 1990. I was taking my routine afternoon walk from one end to the other of Haggin Lane (2.1 miles) when she entered my life. Strutting past the old antebellum mansion on the left and my friend's horse farm on the right, I suddenly was confronted by a Siamese-esque kitten whose plaintiff cries demanded my attention.
What could I do? I knelt briefly to comfort this little urchin and then continued my regemine of exercise on to my home. And she followed me....of course! So I gave her a little bowl of milk out of dumb compassion.
And that was it. We were lovers.
And you can do worse! Trust me.
She soon took up with my two dogs, a Doberman and a Beagle (Both real whimps in their own right). And both realized early on that she was in charge, thus the monicre "Buster". Many's the time that a vet assumed "her" to be a "him" based on her name.
I cannot begin, in this post, to do our relationship justice. So I won't even try. Therefore, let's fast forward to the spring of 2003 and her diagnosis of feline diabetes. It really surprised me at the time...I had never fed her anything but manufactured cat food and mostly the dry kind. Yet, I then became her doctor, and we bagan a regime of twice daily injections of insuline. It was a routine that she never balked at. It was something that she actually participated in with a typically faithful heart that made it easier on me.
Her life took a couple of downward turns in the autumn/winter of 2004/2005 and she finally died in my arms on the Monday after Easter in 2005. I buried her in my backyard and placed a statuary of a cat over her grave as a marker. I also planted an Easter lily there, which bloomed and then died back. And then, about three weeks ago, it sent up another shoot, and this past week offered two new glorious blooms.
Gifts that flourish. Life continues to bless.
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