OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: Cats and Compassion replies to "They even killed the cats!"

Dorothy and her mom stood in line at the vet’s office for an interminable time before a doe-eyed brunette, as thin as a French-cut string bean, noticed them and inquired, “Hi, can I help you?”

Dorothy replied, “I am looking for the cat of my dreams; he has pure white fur and eyes the color of the summer sky, and his name is Bob.”

“Well, this is most numinous. You see, I have a five-year-old cat back in storage that needs a home. He is very sad, for he has been in a cage for almost seven months. He has licked off all his hair, and he pouts a lot.

“You see, it was Thanksgiving week when his first family dropped him off. They didn’t love him. They tossed him away. They wanted the doctor to give him a shot, to put him to sleep. But I said, ‘No way! I’ll put that cat in storage, and one day, someone will come in here and take him away.”’

Dorothy’s mom interrupted. “There must be a reason that family tossed that cat away.”

The doe-eyed string bean replied, “Sister, let me tell you, this cat is no more neurotic than any other cat I have known. I will not lie to you, for he is indeed one neurotic cat, who never was a beauty. But he did have white fur when he came in here, and his eyes are still as blue as a summer sky. He is most definitely OC; you see, he licks himself a lot, and so, is now as bald as a bat.

“Oh, by the way, he whines like a banshee and paces about. You see, after his upsetting Thanksgiving holiday, the vet fixed him for Christmas, and no doubt you can imagine why he is naturally still quite upset about that. Oh, by the way, he has claws, and since he is too old for surgery, they must stay. But, sister, I assure you, he’s no more or less neurotic than any other cat around. Follow me into the back room, and you will see that he really is a cool cat; you should take him away.”

“I think Dorothy wants a blue-eyed baby kitty, not one so worn-out,” Dorothy’s mother pleaded, looking hopefully at her daughter.

“I don’t care how old he is, as long as he is my Bob,” Dorothy shouted over the cacophony of barking and yelping, as the doe-eyed string bean stopped in front of the center cage and announced,

“Surely, I told you--this cat has always been called Bob.”

And with that, she turned, and with one smooth motion, unlatched the cage and pulled out a long scrawny cat, with a few patches of white fur, but mostly skin showing. His enormous blue eyes, the color of the summer sky, looked into Dorothy’s, and he moaned like a baby in pain; Dorothy proclaimed, “He’s the one!”

Dorothy took him home on her shoulder as her mom drove the Crossfire, and Bob never moved a muscle, nor made a sound. Dorothy’s mom thought, This won’t be so bad, right?

As soon as Dorothy put Bob down in her room, he wailed and moaned, and Dorothy did not know what to do, until her mom told her, “He’s just like a baby, and you may have to walk the floors holding him all night. Welcome to motherhood.”

Dorothy gleefully picked Bob back up and carried him around on her shoulder, just like you would a little baby. Every single time she put Bob down, he would whine, kvetch, and pace all around, and would stare at her with his blue eyes the color of a summer sky. Dorothy swore she heard him say, “Sister, I’ve got the blues bad, and I can’t calm down unless you carry me around.”

The very next night, the bombs hit Baghdad.

All night, Dorothy walked the floors with Bob, the blue-eyed cat on her shoulder, and a heart breaking, breaking, breaking for all the innocents caught up in the crossfire. She knew she was connected. You are too.

In the 11th century, Hildegard of Bingen knew:

God responds speedily whenever the blood of innocence is being shed. Of this the angel choirs are singing and re-echoing their praise. And yet at the loss of innocence clouds are weeping.

Bob, the blue eyed cat, has now calmed down. He doesn’t want to be held, and he never makes a sound. His hair has grown back, pure white and coarse as grit. Into his summer sky blue eyes, clouds of cataracts have moved in. He moves slowly, slowly, slowly. Bob tucks his front legs under his chest and gently bows as he gets down. What a contemplative Bob has become, for deliberate movement is prayer.

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