….was Bumps…

One day….out on our back deck…. he just appeared. I figured…a stray… he’d run when I approached…but he didn’t. I leaned down to say hello and he bumped his head on mine. He did that every time…any time…he loved people more than any cat I ever met. In my family…a stray was considered a gift…we never turned one away…so I knew he was mine…and I was his…..the name came easy! He slept with me, he slept with my brother… never begged for food…just sat quietly and patiently for what  he knew was coming…a remarkable calm and serenity I learned much  from….just a delightful creature.

Bumps was green eyed and “pure” white…stem to stern….well, if you can imagine a sheet washed 100 times with blue jeans…let’s just say “dingy” white. Didn’t care then...don’t care now. His face…and sorta crosseyed…contained more scars than I could count…and his ears….let’s just say ruffled. He was a fightin SOB…a Tom-Cat. He’d regularly come back bloody…and I learned my first lesson in sex thanks to him. Saw him one day “ in flagrante delicto” with a tasty kitty…tried to pull him off…no dice….told Dad who said….. So?….. I finally  figured it out  :o

The friends you meet in life may not be perfect…and Lord was he a sinner. But I have always believed…”hate the sin…love the sinner”. I sure did love my Bumps. He lost his last fight…had to retrieve him from under the house…another lesson learned…you take care of your friends…to the end.

I buried him in a corner of the back yard…it’s been 29 years…I could go right there now…an honored place for an honored, flawed, friend.

Best,

Jon

Nice!!

Never turn away strangers, for some have entertained angels unaware. Do you suppose this goes for cats, too? So it would seem. Blessings. lance

Bumping heads with one so wild in the streets and comfortable in boytown homelife is a companion to admire, a candle burning brighter in memory of a friendship smile that sticks with you. 

anyone or anything that you loved and is now gone I grieve with you Jon.

R.I.P. Bumps

At one point in my life, we had two dogs, Duchess a black lab, and Fizzy a white husky mix, and nine - count them 9 cats.

Duchess was spayed female and we had taught her the boundaries of our property and she never strayed.  I found Fizzy in the parking lot of where I worked with a cloth collar grown into his neck.  I got scissors from my desk, cut the collar off, put him in my car and the rest was history.

At that time I then had two dogs and one small cat, Miss Kitty - not spayed.  It was through Miss Kitty that I learned how quickly one very small cat could produce so many kittens!  She gave birth to her first litter of two kittens literally in my lap!  Both kittens were male and named Chaos and Serenity - Chaos because when I realized birth was occurring in my lap, and Serenity because he was born on a towel on the floor.

Human females usually cannot get pregnant while nursing, but as I learned cats can!  Second preg for Miss Kitty resulted in one male kitten, whom she totally abandoned.  I hand fed this tiny little animal and we named him Rocky because of his start.  So at this point, we are now with two dogs and four cats.

You think I learned, right???  Wrong.  Miss Kitty did it again (which I knew how), and this third litter had five, count them FIVE kittens. 

I found homes for all five of this litter, had Miss Kitty spayed and was left with the two dogs, and the four cats, Momma Miss Kitty, Chaos (male), Serenity (male) and Rocky (male).  All cats were indoor/outdoor cats.

One by one, each of the male cats came to me to apparently say goodbye, because they snuggled as they usually did, but just disappeared.

We now have one male lab mix dog (neutered) 13 years old and one female calico cat (spayed) also 13 years old.  When the dog is gone, there will be no more dogs.  But when our cat leaves this world, I will immediately get another one, but do I want another male cat who may say goodbye to me? 

One who grew up with nothing but dogs all my life and swore I hated cats.

Sandy

There have always been a couple of cats around our house, Jon.  Place just doesn't seem to operate correctly without them.  The dogs just have to learn to deal...  ;)

Great story.   He may have been a crusty old sinner, but he sounds just fine.  :)

All the best,

George

i love your stories jon and i miss reading them