DAWNSPIRIT
One evening in late July, 2008 the Brooks family was sitting on their patio, chatting and such. At one point Meghan; the eldest of two siblings sat up in her chair hearing a faint wail. Since no one else had heard it and she wasn't even sure she had, she ignored it.
But it came again and again getting louder each time. Finally Benjamin asked, "Dad, did you forget to feed the cats?" His father's answer was no and that they were probably being pigs. So it wasn't until it sounded only ten yards away that they actually looked for the source of the continuing yowl. Meghan turned and gasped in surprise. "Mom! Dad! Look, it's a cat!"
Sure enough a thin bone-framed cat was crawling out of the bushes of the woods. Meghan being a great cat-lover immediately got up and walked in a cautious but welcoming way toward the feline. Much to her surprise and to the others the cat begin a wobbly run straight towards the girl purring loudly. Meghan lay down in the grass while the cat begin to climb on her and press her nose against her.
While the cat was busy Ben ran up to the attic and brought back a small bowl of food. The cat ate hungrily. She looked as if she hadn't had a proper meal in weeks. While the cat was busy Meghan looked at her. The top of her spine along with her ribs showed through, but strangely her belly was quite large. "She's a female [Meghan told her parents] and she's pregnant."
The cat looked up at Meghan and rubbed her face against her hand. Meghan's mother; Julie looked uncertain. "Couldn't it just be some kind of stomach sickness?" she suggested. Meghan shook her head. "No, she wouldn't be able to be like this. I don't think if that was the case."
Meghan and Ben tried to convince their parents to bring the cat inside or at least keep her sheltered and fed. By that time the kids were tired and they went up to bed. Their parents were still trying to work things out with the cat.
Around five o'clock the next morning Meghan awoke to her mother shaking her. "Hey Meghan, you were right. She was pregnant." Without another word Meghan sprang out of bed and the women hurried downstairs where Ben was waiting. Meghan entered the bathroom first where her parents had put the cat. At first she couldn't see them, but then she looked into the shower. "Five kittens!" she whispered in ecstasy. "Five beautiful kittens!" Mama Cat; which is what she was called by that time purred hard, as if knowing that she was being congratulated.
Meghan bent to take a closer look. Two of the kittens seemed to be of fairly normal size, though one was quite big even for that, but the other three like their mother were unusually small. They were all beautiful and Mama Cat must have been completely trusting, because she allowed them to pick up the kittens so that they could change the sheet which lined the shower. In the following days they watched in delight as Mama Cat suckled her kits and watched them just start to move around the nest a bit. Only a few days after birth one of the smallest kittens died. They grieved and buried him (for that is what they supposed the kit was) by all of their other special pets, where now lie Idgie, Annie and Getty, and of course, the kittens.
Meghan noticed that Mama Cat only had two nipples instead of the usual eight, she and wasn't healthy enough yet to produce the right amount of milk. Heading to the veterinary office they picked up KMR (Kitten Milk Replacement) and some bottles. They were going to bottle feed.
Meghan had a special little place in her heart just for one particular kitten. It was the smallest of the litter and obviously the runt. She was almost certain that it was a female and was the one who was always bottle-feeding her. Two Sundays after the birth Meghan awoke and came into the bathroom. The kittens were now squirming around the shower and the biggest one had began to open his eyes! But she had been noticing that despite the extra milk the little kitten she loved was still not as active as the others, and still looked indistinctly unhealthy. Picking her up that morning, she fed and spent more time petting and holding her. The kitten loved it and it even purred a very faint purr. But around ten o'clock its breathing became very faint and Meghan grew worried. "We need to take her to the vet," she told Julie.
Her mother conceded and they started up the car, Meghan holding the kitten close. All through the car ride she stroked and talked to the kitten, but in her heart she knew it was too late. As they neared the entrance to the Orchard Park Animal Hospital. she realized that the kitten was gone. They rushed in and the doctors took her immediately, but they came out soon after. Meghan cried, and cried, and cried.
Mama Cat and her three surviving kittens (now named Webster, Luna and Lu-Lu) have all found good loving homes, but in my heart I'll never forget that little she-cat. She was the dawn of my awakened senses to the world of animals and her spirit left life at the dawn of it.
Dawnspirit.
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Credits: This is a true story that happened in 2008. I am Meghan and I based this out of what I remember. While writing, I still cried. I'm not ashamed to admit that I loved those cats, but I am going to try and do something about it. My life's goal is to become an accomplished veterinarian and a good writer. But I'd also like to make more 24/7 offices all over the U.S.A.and other countries if I can. Dawnspirit died because we were forty-five minutes away from the nearest open vet and I know that it is too much. My puppy also might have died because it was so far away. And even though we would have had to most likely pay over one-thousand dollars for the treatment she would have gotten, I would have payed so with joy. I hope this story inspires all of you to do the same.
