Adulting Part Six: Gratitude

People are not mean to grateful creatures.

If you practice being grateful you will be less stressed, less angry and happier. You will be civil; you’ll encourage civility towards you because generally people are not mean to grateful creatures.

I used to be a dog person until he died and now, I have six cats.

I have a large coffee mug that has a cartoon picture of a cat and “I do what I want,” printed on it.

I am not that crazy cat person. Really. Though some days it feels like that.

When I retired to the country several years back, I thought it would be the quiet country life, doing what I want, when I want.

Retirement is like being in your twenties except that you can’t count on your body as much and if you did it right, you don’t have to rush off somewhere to make more money. You can sleep until you get up. You can stay up as late as you want. You can eat chocolate cake for breakfast if you want.

Living in the country, you soon find out, is that city people come and abandon unwanted critters, mainly cats, at the end of your driveway.

Our first cat was a cute female whom we didn’t get spayed fast enough. She produced five kittens. After spending a fortune spaying, neutering and on vaccinations, the coyotes starting picking them off one at a time. They all lived in the barn and could move about as they pleased. Down to only two of the original six, one decided to live indoors and the other still likes to live in the barn.

Three years ago, someone dumped a very pretty, orange and white cat, FIV (Feline immunodeficiency virus) positive. The vet asked if we wanted to “put him down” because of the FIV status. FIV, it was explained, is like HIV - AIDS in humans.

We declined.

We live in the country. He’s our gentle giant. Also, as dumb as dumb can be, but very sweet. He has crossed eyes. He’s healthy and weighs twelve pounds now and prefers to live in the barn, though he willingly comes in the house on very cold nights.

The following summer, in June, we were having one of those cooling rain showers and out of the woods crawled a starving and what looked like a waterlogged kitten. At that time, he had weird coloring and was trying to put on a good show for us so we’d take pity.

We did.

At the vet’s office, we found he weighed three pounds, had had his teeth kicked in and they were infected and about three inches of his tail had been cut off. He also had a severe respiratory illness and carried “Cat Scratch Fever” an infectious bacterial disease that can be transmitted to humans. We had to administer antibiotics for around fourteen days and we had to fatten him up so he could have nine of his damaged teeth removed. We also had him neutered and vaccinated.

It turned out, he is a seven-year old that now weighs ten pounds and is a very fluffy, long hair, gray and white cat with henna colored highlights and beautiful green eyes.

He’s the coolest cat.

He was a very territorial cat. His home was the front porch. We made him a Styrofoam box with a comfortable bed to sleep in - which he clearly adored. No one was allowed near it but he and I.

His favorite sport was to chase the other cats, who were sunning themselves, off of the front porch. It got so severe and vicious I looked into a cat behaviorist who wanted four hundred and fifty dollars plus fifty dollars for travel, for the first session.

This cat was already the thousand-dollar cat so the behaviorist was out.

We waited.

Things eventually settled in the realm.

There were no fights, an occasional hiss or two but nothing major. The original cats avoided the front porch and stayed in the back yard near the back porch.

We call them all the back porch cats.

Then on New Year’s Day, after the June when we acquired our first gray cat, the second gray cat appeared. This one was a kitten, we discovered, who was ten months old.

It looked like he had a severely broken leg.

At the vet, we learned the leg had been shattered, like someone had swung him around by that leg and cast him out of a vehicle.

It was quite clear he was in pain.

We went to two surgeons and got the same opinion both places. We had to have the leg amputated.

It was horrible. But the surgeon did a wonderful job though.

Really.

It just was so horrible to have to make that decision.

We had to keep this guy mostly in a large crate for a month as the wound healed. He had to wear a “cone” (a plastic collar like thingy worn around the neck that keeps the animal from licking or tugging at stitches) while in that crate for a month.

Luckily, he had to have pain medication that knocked him “out of it” most of the days and nights of the first two weeks. He had to eat with the cone on, sleep with the cone on, use the litter box with the cone on.

He hated that cone.

Deputy (left) and Sheriff. Photo credit: Collette Greystone.

We had a very warm, almost spring like day late late that January and I thought he might like to be out on the front porch in the sun for a bit. I shoved him, in the crate, out onto the front porch into the sun. The look on the old, territorial, fuzzy gray cats face was priceless as he looked into that crate and saw the “coned” up kitten missing a leg.

I had no idea cats could have facial expressions, but they do.

As the young gray cat healed, he was allowed to be out of the crate, but indoors. The old gray cat would watch him hobble around, exploring on his three legs, by sitting on the outside windowsills, going from window to window looking in from the outside.

When the stitches finally came out, he was allowed to go outside for short periods of time. I would accompany him and always we’d start the walk by going out the front door where the fuzzy gray cat with green eyes greeted us and who would accompany us. It was heartbreaking to see the kitten fall occasionally as he learned to cope with using his paws in a new way. But the old fuzzy gray cat was always there to cheer him on.

As spring turned into summer, the kitten got to spend whole days outside, but we brought him in at night because he would be an easy grab for a coyote.

Sheriff & Deputy. Photo Credit: Collette Greystone.

The two gray cats became inseparable.

The fuzzy old gray cat would take the gray kitten around our place showing him all the great spots. It almost looked like they were on patrol, so we started calling them the sheriff and the deputy. The sheriff would bring the deputy back to the porch at dusk and we would bring him in for the night.

As the summer got hotter and the days got longer, we’d have cocktail hour on the front porch at dusk. The sheriff would bring the deputy back, the deputy would go in to bed, and then the sheriff would hop up on my lap expecting to be petted (which was very unusual for him) and then he’d fall asleep in my lap.

This routine continued, but the ritual changed, the sheriff began rubbing his gums on me (which was gross until I learned it meant he loved me). He also had been bringing me dead things (big moths, mice, snakes - another sign of love) all along, purring and rubbing his body against my leg, but the gum thing was new.

Also new, was that the back porch cats were allowed on the front porch once again.

Now the fuzzy old gray cat wants to come into the house at night with the gray kitten.

The sheriff and the deputy have become inseparable 24/7. When the sheriff comes in, he makes an effort to come see both of us no matter where we are in the house.

We get the gums, the butt (when you pet a cat and he raises his butt and tail it means he really appreciates how you are petting him), and the flop on the floor so you can pet his belly (another sign of affection).

The deputy has learned the “love” rituals from the fuzzy old gray cat as well.

Both, I feel, recognize how good they have it now. And to me it is an amazing display of gratitude.

Gratitude requires that you understand how you landed where you did in a situation and that you appreciate the good stuff, regardless of the outcome.

Gratitude is simply finding appreciation for what has happened, what you have, and who you are.

Focusing just on the good things takes a lot of practice because for some reason we tend to focus more on our failures.

Now it is true you can learn an incredible amount from failure, but along the way there are always ways to extract the good and that’s what you want if you want to recognize gratitude, sort of like cutting the nasty fat off of a rib eye steak.