My first day in the Caribbean I met a friendly calico whom I took to immediately. As with many island resorts, this one was overrun with kittens of all kinds, many of them calicos. I’m not foolish enough to believe that I was the first tourist to foster this feline orphan, but for the next 10 days she was as good as mine. She followed me around; I fed her, I cared for her. She was quite a “talker”, and as we were in the French West Indies, I imagined her speaking to me either in French or in English with a hard French accent: “Liza…would you pleez scoop some more tuna feesh into my bowl as I am as hungry as a wild ti-gher. Immédiatement!!!"
I named her Gamine, which, as you know, is the French word for “scrappy little street girl.”
They say that you are either a dog person or a cat person, and even if you love both, one much be a dominant bias. If that has to be the case, I would have to admit that I am a dog person all the way.
I love all animals, but I think that living in NYC—with its abundance of neurotic, stinky indoor cats—slightly turned me off to cat ownership. The other reason is, as a child I owned perhaps the most perfect cat on the face of the planet. She’d followed me home during the infamous blizzard of ’78 from my neighbor’s—The Delpicos—house where they had taken her in as a stray. My mother refused, and back down the street she went, only to find that the cat had made a pilgrimage back to our doorstep all on her own in the middle of the snowstorm. “All, right,” my mother conceded, “If she really needs to live here she can stay in the shed.” So, in the shed she went. I remembered being elated, understanding that the shed is (sort of) an extension of our home. As a grown up now I understand my mother was hoping the cat would find a cozier, more welcoming alternative. But one night later my mother sent my dad out to the shed to retrieve the year-old cat, who would soon be known as Mittens for her white paws.
I remember my mother’s explanation as, “My grandmother always said that if a cat comes to your door you should never turn it away.” And then, with a sigh, “She had a lot of cats.” Mittens came to us fully trained, with perfect manners. She wasn’t chatty, but she was fiercely loyal and loyally fierce, despite her runt status, for the next 10 years. (PS: We put an add in the paper, but no one claimed her!)My great grandmother wasn’t the only one who believed in this animal-welcoming mantra. Many cultures believe that an animal chooses you because they have a lesson to teach you. Each and every animal represents something different in each and every culture. The Egyptians worshipped cats believing the cat to be a descendent of the sun god Ra. When a cat was in an Egyptian home, she ruled. Anyone who has every owned a cat would agree that if you own a cat – they rule the house!
And so, I honored the tradition of my Galway-born great-grandma when I met one. I’d fostered strays over the years, feeding them, finding them homes, even giving them names like Medea and Cunegonde until their owners could meet them and name them on their own.
When the concierge told me a story of the local cat killer (or, cat catcher from the pound, as he’s more commonly known) who’d come to gather kittens to euthanize, I knew I had to take action. I was going to adopt Gamine and bring her to NYC.
Now, adopting a cat from the Caribbean isn’t as simple as it seems. Yes, they are overrun with cats, and more than happy to get rid of them. Still, I was eager to get started on the process. I was lucky enough that a local cat loving friend was going to capture and care for Gamine throughout the process of timed shots (mandated so many weeks apart) and having her spayed. Lastly, someone had to be willing to take her on the plane to NYC – someone from the hotel offered! Everything was going as planned. And then a snag. A big snag.
Despite the fact that this kitty was now the bearer of a tiny identifying microchip inscribed with my name, Queens address and phone number, I could not keep her in Queens. Further, I knew that I would be leaving Queens and going – where exactly? As I was leaving on a 10-day venture for Rome the day after her arrival, she would have to be boarded. She was so used to freely flitting around the sand and the sea – how would she react to being kept inside? All the time? Was my pursuit to have this cat more inhumane than I thought?
The day I decided to leave her be I cried for hours, and then sporadically over the next many months when I recalled my cat caretaker friend in my head telling me that she might not re-acclimate to a life outdoors.
What had I done???
For so long people would ask me, “You adopted that cat from the Caribbean, didn’t you?” And I would just lower my head, and shake it in shame.
Flash forward nearly a year and a half when I am back at the same resort and walking the same path back to my room. There, our from behind a bright pink bush, pops a spunky little calico crying, “Hey you! Where have you been?”
I bent down and she sat in front of me, where I could examine her markings. The very same cinnamon and chocolate stripes, three distinctly dripping down her head, and a random splotch on her right ribcage. Left paw, white, right paw, tortoise shell. I started back to my room and she followed the whole way, only to stop when I stopped to acknowledge a grounds worker when she exclaimed, “That cat is following you!”
Does this story have a happy ending? Well, the fact that Gamine is alive is very happy indeed. But, no, she did not make any further ventures to the St. Martin vet’s office in prep for her American visa. After I’d seen, yet again, how joyfully she’d relished her freedom, I felt it unfair to make the attempt. I hope that by having her fixed and vaccinated I’ve somehow preserved her longevity. I’ll visit Gamine every year and have renewed faith we’ll find each other. Au revoir for now , Gamine! Until we meet again.
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