Juno, the story of my Cat

[Beringia]

Last edited Thu Aug 23, 2018, 04:07 AM - Edit history (1)

Juno
A tabby with large green eyes
With black lines tapering off the top of each eye
Like an Egyptian

I had two other Maine Coon cats that
Someone had left in the apartment building entrance hall
They were calm and nonchalant
We took them in

Years later, I moved to Oak Park
And let the cats go outside through a window
To the stairs in the back
And out to the wild outdoors

One day, Juno came in through the window
And went right to the food dishes and began to eat
I picked him up and he was very friendly

That night, I kept him in my bedroom with the door closed
In the middle of the night, I awoke to hissing and growling
I woke up and saw he was extremely upset at being locked up
And captured as he perceived it, against his will

So I got a broom and swept him to the kitchen
And out the back door

The next day I opened the back door and there he was
Sitting buddha-like on the back steps
He looked deeply at me
I looked into his eyes and fell in love
So I took him back in and told him he was free
To come and go as he wished
And I would never lock him in a room again

Since I had two cats, and I thought three was too much
I tried to find another home for him
Then I decided I loved him too much to give him up
He was my dream cat

He was half feral and half tame
He was athletic and lithe
He must have been less than 1 year old

I noticed when I put my hand above his head
To pet him
He took this as an aggression
And would jump and bite at my hand
So I always petted him close to his head
Without my hand raised

Sometimes when I was walking
He would jump at me
As if anticipating I was going to get him
So I took to spraying him with a spray bottle
When he looked intent on jumping
And this stopped the habit

I figured his previous owner
Must have teased him over and over
So that now he looked on my hand over his head
Over my standing above him as a prelude
To my attacking him
And then when the owner had trained him to distrust
A person’s hand held over him, he attacked
And so the owner must have driven a distance
From his house and abandoned him
After he had ingrained mistrust and aggression in to him

I sometimes found him sleeping in the storage basement
Where my boxes of old clothes and books were
How did he know which was my stall, the smell?
The room could have been locked at any time
And he would be trapped
It was lucky that I found him there

While he had been wild and abandoned
He had befriended another half-wild cat
A big Orange cat
But now that he had a home
He wanted no part of that Orange cat

Sometimes the Orange cat
Would come to the window and sit on the sill
Juno would go mad with rage and frustration
Growling and batting at the window
I pulled him away and calmed him down

Once when I was taking a nap
He laid down on my belly
And we bonded strongly, cat to human
Another time, I was taking a bath
And he actually climbed onto my belly
That was above the water
And laid down

He always went out at night
And lost his collar from cat fighting
A neighbor would call
And tell me they had the collar
And I would go to retrieve it
Sometimes many blocks away

He started to get nicks in his ears
From the cat fights
I didn’t want to neuter him
And take away some of his wild spirit
His inheritance
But I knew it was not good to make more
Feral cats and for him to get into fights
So I had him neutered

I talked to the veterinarian about it
And he reasoned that it was unnatural in the first place
To have a cat in a house, a kind of wild animal
So to counter this, it was okay to do something unnatural
Like neuter him
This made sense to me

I would come home from work
And he would be in the driveway
He would say hello, hello
And I would pick him up
And put him on my shoulders
We were best buddies

One time, I was about to go to work
And I was feeling extremely tense and nervous
Juno came over and laid on my belly
My negative energy flowed up into him
And all at once, he jumped up in the air
And away from me

I decided to move to Wisconsin
To be closer to the wild
Juno did not like the ride
And pressed his nose so hard
Against the grated door
That he scarred his nose

He loved it in Wisconsin
I could open the front window on the first floor
And he could come and go as he wished
Here he could explore more wilderness
And catch many more mice

A few times, he brought home
A baby rabbit
I didn’t like him when he did this
I was able to save one of them
He must have found their den
And was picking them off one by one
Such savagery

He wasn’t much interested
In my other two cats
He ignored them

One time, one morning, he jumped on my lap
As he usually did
And as I petted his tail, he let out a hiss
And jumped down
I went to inspect it
And saw a big lump at the base of his tail
Where he had been bitten

I took him to the vet and said I thought it might be an opossum
But she said it was another cat

Then one day I saw the other cat
It was a very large feral white cat
With no tail
Had he been jealous of Juno’s tail
And tried to bite it off
I chased the cat off the front yard
And away into the wild bushes
The cat must have taken Juno by surprise
To have gotten his tail
Juno must have been laying down, unsuspecting
And then gotten a rude surprise

The days went by
Juno would wait for darkness to come
And then leave for the night
Nighttime, advantage cat

Then I decided to move to Washington State
Where there were forests and mountains
Along with big cities

It was a long drive
My other two cats, the Maine Coon cats
Had already died. One from a car, and one from old age
It was just me and Juno

One night on the trip
I slept in a tent
I brought Juno in
But he became extremely excited and wild
And tried to escape
So I had to return him to the car
He was okay in the motels

Then a tragedy happened
And I had to leave Washington quickly for my own safety
I was going to drive to Alaska
But on the way, my brakes gave out
I didn’t have time
I didn’t have inoculation papers to take Juno on a plane
And tragically, I had to leave Juno in the motel
While I flew to Alaska

After I was in Alaska for a month or so
My sister asked if I wanted to try to get Juno back
I was torn. I was feeling overwhelmed by taking care of my safety
And didn’t know if I should get Juno at this time
But my sister said now or never
And so I did

She called the motel where I left him
And amazingly one of the cleaning women
Had found Juno and taken him home
They agreed to send him to me in Alaska
What a miracle
What a great thing for my sister to do for me

The day came for Juno’s arrival
I was very nervous
And my sister kept looking at me and my reactions
I just wanted it to be over with, the waiting

Finally, her husband came in with Juno
We took him out of the cage
He seemed calm and perfectly okay

Now his life was in a small room
He took the highest perch on top of some bins and clothes
My emotional state was like a whirlwind
And I think it bothered Juno to be near me
So one day he left out the window
In the winter
And didn’t come back

I cried and cried that night
With the window open, freezing air blowing in
Calling to him
But he did not return

At first I thought an owl might have gotten him
I went to the local hardware and plant store
To get a cage to capture him
I talked to a wise old woman
Who told me if an owl got him
There would have been wing prints on the snow
Where Juno was captured
She said he was probably somewhere near the house

I put fliers up in the local store
Every day I went around the premises of the property
Calling his name and leaving food at different places

Then I noticed the food was being eaten
And I saw paw prints in the snow
Later I caught sight of a feral cat
And thought that must have been him eating the food and
Wandering the premises

More weeks went by
Then one day Juno jumped into the window
I was overcome with joy
He weighed less than a feather
He must have returned because of starvation

My sister had a big house
With two other cats, one shy and wild and the other overly-friendly
He chased the wild one and just put up with the friendly one
But Juno always stayed in our room on his perch
There was a dog there too
But Juno hissed and arched his body at him
And kept him at a distance

One day Juno came up to the living room
We were all on the couch watching TV
Juno jumped on the coffee table
And just sat there staring at us
Commanding the space
I told my nephew to pet him

All other times
Juno would climb the stairs
From the downstairs bedroom
And sit at the top of the stairs
Not wanting to be alone
I would go to get him
But he would always run away
He wouldn’t stay on my lap in the living room
He would hiss at me if I tried to keep him there
He was only comfortable in his own space in the bedroom

One day I heard Juno say
I just want to know why you left me
I heard it plain as day
So I explained I was in trouble
And my life was at stake

We were there a year and then I had to leave
I came back to an apartment in Berwyn near my family
Only there was no where for Juno to go
The back door led out to a stairwell
Then to a dank and lonely cement backway
It was long and you had to make a turn
To get to the other exit out to the alley

I tried to get Juno to learn how to get
To the alley
Because I new he needed a life with interest in it
But he wouldn’t learn
He would just cry loud
And I would bring him back in

He didn’t like his life anymore in a closed in apartment
I felt so guilty about it
He wasn’t the kind of cat content to live indoors
He needed excitement
And his spirits were depressed living in an apartment

Also I made my living every day by typing, 8 hours a day
I hated my work but had to make a living
Juno would jump on the table next to my keyboard
And watch me
And then he would jump at my hands
To stop them from this mad typing
I started using a spray bottle to get him away

When I did art projects
He would come and investigate
And get in the middle
But he knew typing 8 hours a day was madness

Juno took to sleeping more and more
Hiding away as far as he could get
On top of a large cabinet
In a dark empty box

He would come out at night
When he heard the TV come on
And my typing was over
And he would jump on my lap

Then I started noticing a funny noise when he walked
Into the kitchen from the living room
Finally I got up to watch him
And he was doing this funny pace
With his legs straight out in front of him as he walked
I knew something was wrong

I took him to the vet and she said one of his enzymes was extremely high
I asked if he could have had a stroke
But she said, no, because then he would have high blood pressure
She sent me to the specialists

I took him to the specialists and they observed him
They then took an ultrasound and saw a mass
They took an aspiration and found it was cancer
They prescribed medicine and his walk returned to normal

I felt horrible for him
I wondered if my own frustrated life along with his
Was what caused his cancer
Some people say animals take on our physical ailments

I had him for about 1 year more
When one day, he jumped into the bathtub
It was so weird a thing for him to do
I decided he was crying for help
So I took him to the vet

The assistant noticed he did not sit right
He would resist putting his weight on his stomach
The vet felt him and said the mass had significantly grown
I said the only thing to do is put him to sleep
Because it will only get bigger
The vet gave him some cat nip and he ate it

And so he was put to sleep
I walked 2 miles home from the vet
With an empty cage
Because my car was broken

I didn’t stay to watch him die
It was all so sudden
I didn’t have time to think about it
And so I fled

Now I wish I could have stayed
And kept him comforted until he died

I have a plaster art piece of his face
Hanging on my wall
I have wanted to take it down
And sleep with it near my heart
But I know I would break it

I saw him in my dreams twice
The first time he was sitting down facing away from me
The second time he was sitting facing me, but he didn’t look up into my eyes
I know I will see him in heaven, where he is happy now

He will always be my Dream Cat

[Frustratedlady]

1. Beautifully written. Sorry for your loss.

Your writing was good therapy. May good memories carry you through your grief.

[Beringia]

3. Thank you

He had a good first half of his life. I try to remember that.

[MLAA]

2. What an amazing story! Thank you for posting.

[Beringia]

4. Thank you

[Petrushka]

5. This kept my attention from beginning to end . . .

. . . and that's saying a lot because I don't usually spend much time reading free-verse poems. This one, however, was well written and told a wonderful story.

Keep writing!

[Beringia]

6. Thank you very much