The Story of Pearl

My grandmother always taught me that when someone we love passes we owe it to them to tell their story, to act as witness to their life, so that their lives will be remembered. When we honor their memory in this way we keep them alive. In that spirit, I offer the story of a special cat who became a part of our family.

You know, it’s funny, because I was never really a cat person before Pearl. And I definitely did not want a cat that day. The day we brought him home. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I certainly had nothing against cats. I had pet cats before and I really liked the whole independent thing they had going on. They didn’t cling…bonus points for that. But at the time I had a bird and I just figured cats and birds didn’t really mix all that well. I told my daughter, “Taryn, we are bird people. We are not cat people.” Taryn, meanwhile, was not at all convinced we were bird people and had been pleading Pearl’s case for several trying weeks. “Mom you should see these kittens they have at school! They really need homes. Their mom was eaten by a coyote! They are orphans mom.”

Naturally, I suspected she was exaggerating for effect. But it turned out to be all too true. The cats belonged to Janet, the principal of Taryn’s school. I stopped by to see her one day and there they all were: a whole litter of “orphan” kittens in a sorry looking (and rather inadequate) cardboard box on her desk. There were two dusty orange-tabby kittens…those were the biggest and the noisiest and, I supposed, the healthiest. They clamored for attention immediately and seemed to be perpetually hungry. Then there was one that was sort of tan colored but with a surprising bright orange tabby tail trailing behind him, sort of added on like an exclamation mark at the end. She was slightly smaller than the orange tabby ones. And lastly, at the bottom of the pile, was the tiniest one….almost completely white with light, tan colored ears, shivering and sickly looking. He literally had gunk oozing out of every orifice. But what he lacked in size and health, he appeared to make up for in cattitude. As little as he was, he still somehow managed to appear kind of angry and dangerous. He had that look that said “Mess with me and loose a finger buddy.” I guessed that one probably wouldn’t make it. As I picked each one up to inspect them, Janet told me their sad tale of woe. Apparently, the mother cat had recently given birth to them, outdoors in a barn. The principal lived far enough out and had enough wooded property that coyotes were indeed a problem. On the day she was killed, Pearl’s mother was apparently trying to draw the coyote away from the barn and the kittens she had hidden there. She did manage to draw him safely away from the nest, but unfortunately for the kittens, she couldn’t outrun him.

Tale of Woe not withstanding, I stuck to my guns. When the daily kitten progress report failed to move me Taryn upped her game to “You know they’ll just put them to sleep if they don’t get adopted.” And when that didn’t work, she resorted to outright begging. “PLLEEAASSEE Mmmmooooommm” in that exasperating way that kids have that makes blood literally come out of your ears (but only if you’re a parent).

Oddly enough I did not get to yes til the day we brought him home. I had steadfastly stuck to “NO, no cat.” My resolve on the subject actually surprised me (I am not known for my strength in the face of incessant pleading). Even Taryn was starting to wear out and accept the idea that there would be no cat. All morning long on the day we brought Pearl home I had an uncomfortable, sort of anticipatory feeling that I just could not shake or explain. The one that tells you “Get ready, STUFF is about to CHANGE.” Then, as I was on my way to pick Taryn up from school, I suddenly pulled over and knew we were about to “receive” a cat. Literally. I actually heard a voice say (and I believe it was my grandmother’s voice) “You will receive a cat today.” And when I say “I knew” I mean in the psychic sense. It was as if we already had the cat and I saw our entire lives together. Trust me; no one was more surprised than me. Inexplicably, I pulled into the pet shop parking lot as though the car were driving itself where it wanted to go despite my express wish not to be there. Given the odd circumstances, I did the only thing that seemed rational at the time. I purchased what I would imagine one would need if one were to suddenly “acquire” a cat. The exact thing I was planning on not doing just that very morning. All I can say in my defense is that, thanks to my grandmother’s psychic training, I always do follow my intuition. Even when I don’t know why.

When I arrived at school that afternoon, Taryn immediately zeroed in on all the cat things piled into the back seat. Apparently what I thought a cat needed was one (or more) of everything: litter box, litter, scooper, toys, toys, TOYS, catnip, food, food bowls, treats, more treats, better treats, organic treats, obscenely expensive treats, cat brush, etc, etc. We could have serviced an entire army of cats. Her eyes got wide (like Christmas Morning wide) and she looked at me for a minute like maybe she had the wrong car. I sighed the deep sigh of moms everywhere when they know they have met their match and rolled my eyes. “Don’t say anything. Just go and get the cat before I come to my senses.”

Naturally, we got the last one that was left: the sickly pale white one, the runt of the litter. The one no one else in their right minds wanted. Of course Taryn was quick to point out that this was entirely my own fault since I had waited til the last possible moment to acquiesce. What can I say? Psychic messages aren’t AT&T. Or maybe they are, since in this case, it turns out we got the Very Best One. Pearl was so tiny when we got him home that you could fit him in one hand with room left over. And right from the start Pearl was Sassy (capital S). He could certainly be friendly (more like a dog at times than a cat really) and liked to greet anyone who was brave enough to visit; but he did not suffer fools lightly (ps: we were all fools) and didn’t pretend to like everyone. Woe betide you if you offended him in some way. For then he would attempt to slap you silly with his miniature white paw of fury. Tiny ball of fluff that he was, he sashayed into Taryn’s room and claimed it (and her) as his property on that very first day in his new home. We should have known. We were goners after that.

Of course in the beginning he was very sick. So our first stop was the vet. There we learned that most of the cat food I bought was highly inappropriate for a kitten that young (we think he was 1 or 2 weeks old at the most). The vet didn’t give us much hope and told us outright that kittens that lost their mothers too soon usually didn’t make it. He gave Pearl some shots, treated all the “oozing” places and handed me a can of white powder. “And what am I supposed to do with this?”

“Add water and pray. That’s mother’s milk formula. It’s the closest you’ll come to replacing Pearl’s mom. Feed him with a dropper every few hours.”

“Excuse me? You mean thru the night?”

“Only if you want him to live.”

Great. Our vet was a comedian. I rolled my eyes for the second (but not the last) time that day and took my “children” home.

Taryn and I took turns with the dropper feedings and she named him Pearl (she was reading The Scarlet Letter at the time). It seemed to suit him. He slept in her bed curled up in her neck. The two of them bonded immediately and were thicker than thieves right away. She could scarcely stand being away from him during the day when she was at school, and raced in to see him the minute she got home. I worked at home so I was able to feed him regularly, but in a few days it was clear that Pearl was growing weaker. To be honest, at first I tried mostly to ignore him. I would feed him, then put him right back into Taryn’s bed. I saw him failing and I didn’t need the heartache of becoming attached to a pet that would probably not make it.

That was about the time that I started to hear the cat calls. It was a pitiful, plaintive mewing sound. And it was incessant. It drove me nuts. At first I couldn’t quite tell where it was coming from and it actually seemed to follow me around the house throughout the day. If I was in the kitchen, it seemed to be coming from just outside the kitchen window. When I was in the living room, it sounded like a cat was on my porch. This went on for 2 days while I, meanwhile, was frantically searching the house and yard trying to find this invisible cat. I even searched our basement thinking that maybe a neighbor’s cat had gotten trapped down there. No luck. I asked our neighbors if they had seen or heard this cat. No one had (which I found hard to believe, I mean this meowing was a loud wailing kind of sound…not the kind you could easily ignore). After 2 days of fruitless searching I started to think that this cat was a figment of my imagination. Except that every time I heard the cat, so did Pearl. Each time the cat started to call, Pearl turned his head and tried to meow back. He was very weak so it was hard for him, but he always tried. Later that day, Taryn came home from school and said that she had found out that the other kittens had all died. Pearl’s brothers and sisters had all gone to separate homes, but none of them had managed to make it. Not even the bigger, healthier ones.

Then all of a sudden it hit me. I knew what I had been hearing. It was like the “death watch beetle” or the “walker on the stairs.” Every culture has its own way to explain the premonition one gets when there is about to be a death in the family. A kind of psychic warning. My grandmother lived in a walk-up duplex with a long staircase and she used to hear someone coming up the stairs all day long on the day before someone died. It used to really get on her nerves. One time I even heard her yell “Come up or go down, but get the hell off my stairs!” We didn’t have any stairs so I guess I hear cats.

Anyway, I suddenly realized that, one by one, Pearl’s mother was calling her kittens back to her. I looked at Taryn. She could see how sick Pearl was and hearing that the others hadn’t done well really scared her. What chance did Pearl have? Right from the start he had been the sickest one, after all. Pearl’s time was running out. “Do something!” Taryn said. Remember back when your kids thought you could fix every problem that came along? I didn’t know if this was fixable, but I had to try. I have always had faith in the power of ritual and prayer. And I especially believed in the power of a mother’s love. So I grabbed some candles, mother’s milk and salt, and I told Taryn to go get a blanket. I said that we were going to petition Pearl’s mom to be his family. She had sacrificed herself to save her kittens after all, and she had the right to call them home to her if that’s what she wanted to do. But maybe if we showed her that he would be safe with us she would let him stay. We placed Pearl on a blanket between us and I drew a circle of salt around him. I lit the candles and put the mother’s milk in a bowl. I prayed for my grandmother’s help so I would know the right thing to say. She adored cats and rescued strays all her life. I took a deep breath and spoke directly to Pearl’s mother.

First, I thanked her for his life. I told her how brave her sacrifice was and how grateful we were that Pearl had survived because of it. I told her that if she would please let Pearl stay with us now, we would solemnly promise to be his family. He would not be a pet to us, but a true family member. He would go wherever we went and we would never let him come to any harm. I would be his foster mom and Taryn would be his sister. And we would care for him always. I then stirred the salt into the mother’s milk and said: “I add this salt of the earth to the elixir of the mother’s womb. By the power of mothers everywhere and of the earth--my mother, I bind myself to Pearl.” I anointed us all with the milk. “By the power of spirit and three times three. And as I will it, so mote it be.”

There is something to be said for creating magic on the fly. I think that’s when we are most likely to speak directly from the heart. The very next day Pearl started to improve. He ate more and started to get stronger. Each day he seemed better, more alert, with more energy. He started to be playful and curious and began exploring his world. I never heard his mother’s call again after that. I had promised he would be part of our family, and I kept my word. I had a kitchen apron that I often wore around the house and during the day I would slip Pearl into one of the big old pockets and carry him around with me like a mother kangaroo. Where I went he went. Until Taryn got home of course; then he had eyes for no one but her. Once he got stronger he started to climb out of the pocket, but he still went with me everywhere. Even when I had clients he was either asleep in my lap or climbing all over them. Either way worked for him. As long as he was in the thick of things he was happy.

Pearl steadily grew to be a strong and handsome boy. From the vet we learned that he was half Siamese (must have been his dad). He had beautiful blue eyes and a shiny white coat with light tan colored ears. And after awhile I found that he could talk. Just a few words here and there at first, and mostly simple things like “hungry now” or “where you been?” or “go to sleep” (he wanted Taryn to go to bed when he was sleepy). But it wasn’t always easy to understand him. For instance, some time after Pearl had been “weaned” off of the mother’s milk formula and onto regular cat food, he began saying “white water” to me. At first, I thought he was trying to tell me that his water dish was dirty and that he wanted clean water. So each time he asked, I cleaned his water dish. My obvious stupidity did not amuse him and he continued to harangue me for white water. Then one day I was sitting in my chair with a nice glass of milk, when he leaped up, stuck his entire head into my mug and yelled “WHITE WATER!!! At last!” Like I say. It’s not AT&T. I had a lot of conversations with Pearl like that. He would call things by names I didn’t understand at first and learning his language was a process that took several years to master. Cat humor was especially hard for me to understand. Knocking over a full glass of any sort of beverage that could stain the carpet was one of his very favorite “jokes.” He found that extremely amusing and could not understand what I was so upset about.

Pearl was fond of me, but all of his life, Taryn remained his very favorite person in the whole world. The sun rose and set on Taryn. She hung the moon. Whenever she was in the room his eyes followed her and if he heard her voice elsewhere he ran to find her. He tolerated her husband Christopher (barely); for although Chris was very good to him, Pearl did not like sharing Taryn. The way he saw it, Chris was a guest and was allowed to stay only as long as he remained in Pearl’s good graces (and so long as he continued to provide tasty treats, catnip carrots, and plenty of wadded up post-it notes). Which of course he did. Chris is nobody’s fool after all. Despite the fact that I continually reminded Pearl that Chris had a name, Pearl always referred to him as “the other boy.” “Where other boy go?” he would ask when Chris was at work. Then he would smile his cat smile and curl up on Taryn.

Pearl was an excellent traveler, which was helpful because we were nomads in those days. During his life we lived in California, New York, Maine, and North Carolina. But wherever we went, he was always our constant and faithful companion. When I wasn’t feeling well, Pearl would just say “Eat some grass mom. Grass make better.” When I was very sick with pneumonia (and grass didn’t quite cut it) he never left my side. Then he would tell me stories, or what I imagine cats think of as stories. Like “look out window mom, watch bird fly.” This was a complete story in Pearl’s eyes and had great potential. His silly advice and calm, steady purring could put you in a peaceful trance which was very healing. At the end, when Pearl was very sick himself, and I knew his time was getting near, I told him stories about the next life so he wouldn’t be scared. I said he would see his mom again…his real mom….and there would be lots of green grass to eat and that white water would come fresh on tap whenever he wanted it, as much as he could drink. I thought I might hear his mother’s call again, the way I had when he was so little. But instead I saw both his mother and his father, separately, on two different days. As it turned out, Pearl did look mostly like his dad. But he had his mother’s eyes. They just stood there, waiting quietly, then disappeared. And I knew it was time.

There is an old story about meeting the “Tillerman” or “Ferryman” at the end of one’s journey in this life. He was the one who would guide your boat safely thru the waters of the underworld through the veil to the other side…to the Summerland. It’s an old custom for loved ones to offer “Tea for the Tillerman” after someone passes, as a gift for safe passage. I imagine the idea behind it is that the journey is long and the Ferryman gets cold on the water so hot tea is most welcome.

After Pearl was gone, we lit a candle and poured some white water for the Tillerman. It seemed the least we could do. I pray he was kind and ferried Pearl back home to his mom. I like to picture Pearl curled up with his mother and all his brothers and sisters, back in the barn, and not a single coyote in sight. Safe and warm, and home at last.

Blessed be your journey Pearl. And thanks for spending part of it with us.