Return of Bertha

I looked forward to the day when my cat, Bertha, could come home from the vet’s. The ten-day hospitalization for various procedures, shots, etc. seemed so long. Dinji, Charles’s cat, didn’t have the complications Bertha did, and came home after an overnight. But Dinji, as sweet as he is, sits only in Charles’s lap. The cats claim us individually as their humans.

Our grandson, William Jr., was visiting us and doing a lot of helpful things like pruning the blueberry trees under his Granddaddy’s instruction. He was the one who went to get Bertha when she was finally ready. He set her carrier on the porch floor. There were several family members, the nurse, and others circled around that morning. The moment William opened the carrier, Bertha shot out like a bullet, and she was gone. We saw her white and gray body flash down the driveway towards the barn, a picture of utter panic mixed with relief. She was out of jail free!

Bertha is a cat with a free spirit. She does not cotton to “towing the line”; her feet don’t dance to a common drumbeat. In other words, she is even more of an independent cat than the usual feline. She doesn’t like crowds and she doesn’t like change.

She went into hiding after her hospitalization. She didn’t show up at feeding time. She didn’t come to cuddle in my lap or sprawl under the swing on the porch. It was two days before anyone saw her and then it was only as a shadow one day slipping behind a caregiver’s car. I began to worry that my cat was holding a permanent grudge against me for sending her to the animal hospital. I missed the comfort of her warmth, and her purring presence.

One morning as I walked I was talking to the Lord and I said, “Would you please send my cat back from the bushes or wherever she’s hiding. I miss her so much.”

That very afternoon Bertha came strolling up as if nothing had happened. She didn’t immediately come sit with me on the porch but finally she was really back. As I stroke her white and gray fur and fondle her ears I say, “Thank you, God. I really needed my cat.”

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Philippians 4:6