This is a True Story, But You May Not Like It!

If you are a cat lover, you may not like to read this post!

Twenty six years ago my family moved to a new address. The day we were unloading the moving van, we had several folks from the congregation come to help. We had another visitor that was not as welcome. It was a cat that rushed into the house every time someone opened the door to bring in some of our belongings.

I do not like animals in my house, whether it be dogs, cats, mice, roaches, or what ever. I do love dogs, & always had a dog or two when I was a kid. But they lived outside. And I do not like cats. I could tolerate and feed a cat if I lived on a farm and wanted him to live in the barn and keep rats out of the corn crop. But I do not like cats, especially in my house.

So my intruding visitor on moving day was caught and put out of the house several times. But every time we opened the door he came in again. Someone in the moving party, who was familiar with the facts, told me that the cat had belonged to the previous residents of the home, and that the cat had lived there all his life. He thought it was his house.

To avoid having to chase him after each load of furniture, I caught the cat again and tied him up in the back yard. I then called animal control and told them the situation. I was told that someone would come by later to pick up the cat. So we got busy and the work went pretty fast after that.

When we finished, I got a big glass of ice water and sat down in the den of our new home. It overlooked the back yard. To my dismay I saw the cat had climbed the tree, gone over a limb and hanged himself. He was literally swinging in the breeze, dead!

I called animal control again and was told to put the cat in a plastic bag, and someone would come by to pick it up. But that was not all there was to the story.

I found out later that the previous owner of the cat had not simply gone away and left the cat. He had been given to the little girl next door, who was then in sixth grade. The cat was not yet used to his new residence and was just going back to his place of comfort.

To make matters worse, the little girl next door had seen the dead cat hanging from the tree. When I learned of the fact that the cat was supposed to be hers, I went next door to explain. The mother of the girl was very understanding and cordial, expressing acceptance of us and forgiveness for tying up the cat. But her daughter could not bring herself to even speak to me. And the whole eight years I lived next to her, she never did speak to me. She even had little to do with my two older girls, though they were all within three years of the same age.

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