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finding51-blog · 8 years ago

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The Window Well.

It was around 1 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. Springtime, a few years ago.

Kirk was well into sleep after finishing up the second-last in a string of night shifts. In an attempt to keep things quiet for at least the first few hours of his slumber, I had taken Polly out browsing the local junk store. So far, so good. After this, we’d come home, eat lunch, she’d play a video game, I’d finish some ever-present laundry. It wouldn't be too hard to stay low-key at least for a while.

We pulled into our parking space behind the neighbor’s car, and got out. Right away, I could hear screeching, an awful, tiny, definitely kitten-in-despair kind of sound, but in multiples. I looked at Polly. "The kittens!” she shouted.

I pictured the red-tailed hawk that routinely circles our tree-lined block, on its regular hunt for squirrels. Surely it must have found the kittens in the neighbor’s window well and was going to town. I blocked out the images as soon as they came to mind. We ran across the street to try and stop the madness.

Our hearts raced faster than our feet could get us there.

Cue the joy. Four puffball kittens prancing around the neighbor’s garden just find, tails pointed straight in the air like little exclamation points, scraggily mewing their tiny hearts out assumedly looking for mama to feed them.

One was gray-striped, with each of its four legs a different color - on the front, a solid white and a gray-striped, and the back two, gray and orange-striped, and orange and white-striped. A second kitten was all gray with a splotch of orange here and there and a few stripes on one back leg. The other two were orange tabby, and adorable. Did I mention they were adorable?

And they didn’t just prance. They hopped.

I hadn’t seen the kittens in a few weeks. I’d refused to look at them after the initial sighting. While our neighbors were switching over from oil heating to gas, the service man discovered the litter while in the basement. Mama cat had been smart enough to wedge herself into the crack in the old plastic window well covering and had her babies on a thick bed of leaves left over from the previous Fall out of sight, where they’d be out of sight and fairly protected from the elements. All of us neighbors had taken turns stopping by for a peek at the tiny bundles, all pink and barely furry. The mama, an orange tabby herself, was petite, and I saw her many times coming and going to and from the window well, at various times of day and night.

But I didn’t see her with the kittens this time, nor was she anywhere in sight. This particular yard is somewhat wooded with evergreen and rhododendron, and the adjacent yard belongs to a woman who feeds all the feral, who just keep reproducing. It’s really a problem. Being an animal LOVER, I didn’t mind the cats or kittens, hello, but I could understand why others wouldn’t feel the same. Our dogs had the tendency to sample the ‘gifts’ the cats would sometimes leave around our back yard. A few of the adult cats -- a gorgeous older bunch with long fur and beautiful markings -- even ransacked our shed, tearing up the blinds and messing up cushions on the chairs in an attempt to vacate their secret winter hideaway once they were discovered.

I also didn’t see the fifth kitten. A gray tabby. Keeping an eye on the four, and Polly, who was running after them trying to pick them up, I bent over the window well and pushed open the cracked cover. There, to my surprise, was a cardboard box, more rectangular than deep square, and in it, the gray kitten, along with a few opened cans of cat food.

No time to figure it out. All I knew was, if I didn’t get those kittens back into that window well, the hawk would soon be overhead. An easy meal for sure.

Polly and I managed to put the kittens back into the box and readjust the cover of the well so it appeared to be closed. At least the hawk might not be able to find the kittens if they started screeching again. The mama would probably be back soon anyway. She may have even been watching us from nearby.

We headed across the street back to our house. Polly of course begged to keep the kittens, and I immediately shook my head ‘no’ -- we already had two dogs and a brown cat of our own. Cocoa was already a problem peeing on occasion in our bedroom. Kirk would never go for another cat. He hated cats altogether in the first place.

I on the other hand, was an animal nut. Aside from snakes, rats, and anything that could hurt me, I, as the saying goes, preferred animals over humans any day of the week. My sister and I grew up with an Italian grandfather who raised sheep, rabbits, goats, chickens and dogs. Although he spoke no English, the animals helped connect us to him in ways that didn’t need words. Love grew from respect, and from him teaching us about the animals, we could see how he respected them. We loved him, and we loved his animals. Respect just came naturally, and we grew up surrounded by an amazing brood of wooly, furry, whiskery creatures that he even let us take to school on show-and-tell days. (It was the 70s. What allergies?)

The only time I felt afraid of an animal back then was when Pop-Pop would have us stand on ‘the hill’ with him. It was time for him to call the sheep down from the hill, so that he could feed them and pen them for the night, safe from the countryside’s wild predators. He’d be in his denim overalls, white tee-shirt, great canvas duster and black boots, a train conductor’s cap on his head and a piece of straw in his mouth. In Italian, he’d tell us to just stand near him, be still, and don't scream. We’d try to be brave. We’d stand there independent, looking up the hill, and he’d give the signal -- a shrill of a whistle, between his teeth, and a few grunts and yells, and the adrenaline would take over us kids, for immediately came the thunderous plod of hooves, and we’d be up against him in a millisecond, pressed flat against his duster, arms holding on tighter than tight, sure the sheep would knock right into us and send us straight into the air and down into the creek that ran at the bottom of the field, just behind the yard.

“GWI-et-aH, GWI-et-ah,” (QUIET, QUIET) he would shout, seeming disappointed and annoyed we could fear his animals. Relieved they were past us, we’d hurry after him to the shed, watching in awe as he’d anticipate at least one of the sheep attempting to skirt around the shed and be free. Pop-pop wasn’t afraid one bit. He'd helped birth the lambs and took great pride in keeping his flock healthy and happy. He uttered his usual commands and tones, and the sheep settled into place for the night. He fed them well. He was disciplined and caring. They trusted him. And I took in every second of it, from his tattered fingernails to the way his pitchfork and other garden tools were clean and organized every single day. I loved it. Every stinky time.

If he could handle that, I could figure out how to help these kittens. No problem.

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