Lenore and Wendell
I’ve always been very drawn to animals. As a child, I started asking for a kitten but was assured by my parents that we were dog people, not cat people. After years of me asking though and a long period of me taking careful care of an outside feral cat who learned to trust me, my parents surprised me with a fluffy, 10-week-old rescue kitten on Christmas morning when I was 14. I was obsessed with her from the moment I saw her, and my love of her only grew with time. I named her Angel, and for the next more than 20 years, she would be my most consistent companion. When I’d go to bed every night, she’d lie down beside me, the sweetest little spoon, and I’d be lulled by her softness and affection and the gentle rumbling of her purrs. Through high school, college, my 20’s, grad school, my move to New York, and the first years of my married life, she was there for it all, the dearest little friend. When she was 16, she was diagnosed with kidney failure, and I was told she wouldn’t make it long. The vet trained me on how to give her subcutaneous fluids to make her more comfortable and hopefully buy me a little bit longer goodbye, and Angel shocked us all by stabilizing and doing so well on them that her vet cleared her to move to New York with me the following year. She lived until she was over 20 ½. From the time I was a child through the pain of losing my own children, she was there for me. We went to bed on April 30th and fell asleep snuggled up together as we always did. About an hour later, she woke me up, and I could tell it was time. I loved on her and talked to her and made her as comfortable as I could. She passed away on my chest around 5am on May 1st with my husband and I both telling her how very loved she was and thanking her for being such a wonderful friend and family member.
I was devastated. I missed her immensely and felt so anxious without her. She had been such a huge part of my life for so long. This was the first time since I was a baby that I had not had a pet of any kind, and I saw how much of a difference animal companionship makes for me. I realized the best thing I could do for my own well being was to consider opening our home to another animal. Looking at rescue sites though, I would end up sobbing, knowing Angel was irreplaceable and feeling so guilty for looking for another animal so soon after losing her. She and I had our routines and rhythms from a bond formed through growing up together, and I know I can never have that with another animal. Still, in quarantine and after multiple pregnancy losses, I knew I needed something to care for, and I wanted it to be an animal that really needed a home. A post from a local friend about a friendly stray they’d been feeding needing a home popped up one day. The cat was so cute: small and deep gray and white with golden green eyes.
A couple days later my husband and I drove out to where our friends live to meet her. She was so affectionate. When we arrived home with her that night, she just wanted to be wherever we were. She walked alongside us, leaning into our legs as we walked, which made for some pretty acrobatic moves at times to keep from stepping on her. That night she slept in between my husband and me, making sure she was always touching us both. We named her Lenore. She’d clearly been living outdoors for a while; she was dirty, skinny, and covered in ticks. A few days later the vet was able to see her and confirmed what we’d been suspecting: she was pregnant and due with 3 kittens very soon. The vet also said Lenore was still a kitten herself at only around 9 months old. Just a few weeks after holding my elderly cat while she passed away, we were now waiting for a litter of kittens. What a feline circle of life this time in my life was!
Lenore became very attached to me and I to her. One evening 5 weeks after Angel had died, she came up to me meowing intensely. I picked her up, and I realized she was in labor and wanted me with her. I stayed up with her all night. Like I’d done with Angel as she died, I loved on her and talked to her and made her as comfortable as I could, excitedly anticipating the kittens. Around 4am though, she delivered a strange, large, empty sac. Her body was expelling an early miscarriage. As someone who has had losses, it brought up a lot of my own grief and trauma. Lenore’s labor did not continue, and the vet was concerned the kittens would not survive and said cats giving birth so young often had problems with their deliveries. Five days later in the late afternoon, Lenore again alerted me to her labor starting and we began another sleepless night together. A few very messy hours later, the first kitten was born: tinier than he should have been and all black and motionless. She licked and licked, and I prayed for breath and movement that never came. It would be nearly another 11 draining hours before the second kitten was born, his flailing and squeaking such a welcome sight and sound. Half an hour later, the last kitten was born, not as small as the first but just as still, looking like a tiny version of her mother. After a minute of watching Lenore try to help her, I wrapped her in a warm, wet washcloth and rubbed her chest vigorously, hoping so much to be able to save her. Around 10 minutes later, my husband gently encouraged me to stop and admit this one was dead as well. Lenore had already turned her focus back to kitten #2, who was very much alive and needing her warmth and milk.
It’s often hard not to view animal experiences through the lens of our human ones. When I was a teenager and Angel would lick away my tears during my regular sobbing sessions to the soundtrack of whatever female singer/songwriter was currently accurately encapsulating my plentiful and intense feelings, I thought it was her care for me that motivated her. Later I realized it was more likely her fondness for the taste of salt that drew her to my tears. I received it as comfort though, and that comfort was real. It was also real that we’d formed a bond in which she felt safe enough to lick my sniveling face. In watching Lenore with her miscarriage and her two stillborn babies, I found myself weeping and expecting her to be heartbroken. It clearly was not a pleasant experience for her, but she of course wasn’t grieving in the way I had over my losses. The deeper kinship it made me feel with her and the grief it brought to the surface for me were real though, and buried emotions and deep grief bubbling up to the surface is a chance for deeper healing.
We knew there was a strong chance that our 1 surviving kitten would also not make it. The first week especially is an iffy time for neonatal kittens. I obsessively read about everything I could do to support him and Lenore. We called him #2 for the first few days, but inspired by the Wendell Berry poems I’d been reading, I started testing out naming him Wendell. It stuck. Initially I tried not to interfere with Lenore’s care of him, other than to monitor his weight. While watching them snuggled up together though, I texted my family a cute, funny photo of him where it looked as if he had this large claw that looked like a hook. I stopped and examined the photo closely and then looked at him and realized it was no illusion: on that front paw, he only had one, large claw where two claws were growing together. His front paws were webbed, his back each missing a toe, and one of his back legs was twisted backwards. After a couple minutes of internet searching, I found that the terms for what Wendell had were syndactylism and twisted leg syndrome, both very rare conditions in cats. I read the former would not likely cause him many problems, and the latter was potentially correctable. It all just endeared him to us even more. Since our vet had no experience with either condition, I read voraciously about them. I made a tiny splint for Wendell out of a q-tip, and I did physical therapy with him several times a day by massaging his twisted leg, gently shifting it into the correct position, and holding it in place for a bit. He’d get so mad and make the angriest squeaks in protest, but with the malleability of his newborn muscles and ligaments, after only a couple of weeks his leg was no longer twisted. Now at 8 weeks old, you’d be hard-pressed to tell which of his back legs ever had an issue. He runs and jumps and plays like any other kitten. He has so much personality and spirit.
The weeks watching Wendell grow have been difficult ones as well as precious ones. The harshness of life has been coupled with the lightness of watching a kitten learn that he’s alive, that his mother’s tail is so fun to chase, that everything can be made into a toy or game. I’ll catch him staring intensely into my eyes and the temptation to think he’s loving me arises and disperses as his paw suddenly bats at my blinking eyes that have become his prey. I chuckle as a tiny, fluffy assault is launched against my eyelids. In a time where rest has been necessary, Lenore and Wendell have made it sweet instead of dreary. In a season where I’m grappling with a lot of big unknowns, they’ve made staying in the present easier and more joyful. In all the complications, they’ve brought a simplicity that reminds me I can accept today for what it is in all its grief and fear and heaviness as well as its joys and gifts. As I write this, there is a rustling paper bag moving and crackling next to me as Wendell transforms a chip bag into a fort, and my husband and I are laughing deep, belly laughs at his antics. Thank God for these belly laughs and these cats and this husband.
The most popular poem by Wendell’s namesake is one I’ve come back to a lot recently:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
-Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
I’m so grateful for the peace of the wild things in my home right now and the invitation they offer to not “tax my life with forethought of grief.” Our Orthodox faith teaches us to see God everywhere, in everyone and everything. Icons are not the only icons. We live in a world of icon, of people and things God works through to make Himself visible, audible, and touchable. The times that He feels distant and silent, we can look around us and remind ourselves that He’s given us a world full of Himself. I’m so thankful for the comfort and companionship He offered me daily for so many years through Angel, and I’m grateful now for the way I can feel Him in the joy He’s given me through Lenore and Wendell.
