A Mewling Kitten at four months

A Mewling Kitten at four months
Feed me, feed me, please.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Chapter Four: Do Cats Go to Heaven?

Do cats go to Heaven? I’m a cat. I’d like to think so.

My round eyes radiate love. My purring expresses love. So surely, if I have so much love to give, God must love me in return. St. Francis loved animals. He must have some with him in Heaven.

I've been talking so much about my early beginnings, so now I am going to tell you about my present. My Mummy met a vet today at the Craft Market where she goes to sign my books. I’m very popular. My Mummy made me a star in my first book, Shoo Cat Shoo, and everyone who owns a tuxedo cat loves my photo on the back cover. They love me.

Well, this vet discussed my condition. It’s very delicate to talk like this, but I must face facts, I am seventeen years old---and that is OLD AGE for a cat.
I have kidney disease: a terrible thing to have for one who is a fussy eater. The clinic advised I eat a special diet. ME? Lover of kitty cat’s version of snuffed coke---crunchy, dry cat food laced with supercharged, blown-up-out-of-your-mind flavours that no fresh food could begin to imitate. Really! It’s better to be fed than dead. Good motto. I made it past the dry food stage and am crunching the diet-induced pellets that look like chicken feed and have not gotten into the wet stage. We all know, if I don’t like it, I won’t eat it; so I either die of starvation, or eat royally and die from kidney failure. Let’s face it, the end is all the same.

That’s how the topic of Heaven came up. This June, at a train station in New Jersey, my Mummy met a young, vivacious Venezuelan woman, who looked like the movie star in Million Dollar Baby, with a smile and teeth that stretched a mile. She’s a stripper. Not the movie star. The Venezuelan. She’s writing a book about stripping. She owns a gray tabby cat called Canine who she calls her ‘BA—BEE.’ “I love my BA-BEE. Ee’s my child. Ee’s my life. Ma’m, do you think cats go the Heaven?” Now, wasn’t that a thoughtful question? My Mummy told her that she hoped so.

When my Mummy told that story to the vet, the vet said, ”All my pets are in Heaven, getting along with each other, waiting for me.” Isn’t that wonderful? That’s why God made such a big universe. There must be galaxies filled with all the animals that once lived on earth. Can you imagine a planet filled with cats of all colours?

The same day, my Mummy met the owners of Porter and Cosmo, two more tuxedo cats, who had a book dedicated in their names. They asked Mummy if she would take me with her when she moved out of Bermuda. She replied that I was “too old to travel.” What they meant, however, is would she take my ashes with her. I hate small places. I don’t want to end up in a jar in some foreign country. Mummy replied that I had a wonderful garden where I sit and contemplate everyday. “No,” she said. “He’s in his garden, and that’s where he will stay.”

That’s what she thinks! I have every intention of living in Heaven.

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