Where, oh where, was Cherokee! I looked high and I looked low. He was nowhere to be found. I kept thinking that at any time Mom would walk through the door carrying the box with Cherokee in it. I called out for him for a long time. Mom tried to comfort me, but it just wasn’t much use. My brother was missing and I was missing him! Look, Apache, look! Maybe you missed a place. He’s playing a cruel trick on you by hiding somewhere really hard to find. Cherokee! You can come out now. You win!
In my head I knew that he was dead. Mom kept telling me so. She said that she missed Cherokee maybe as much as I did. Dad did, too. My heart kept telling me that it couldn’t be true. The whole house was sad and quiet. I decided that maybe I could sleep away the sadness. I slept and I ate, nothing more. I didn’t even want to sit on Mom’s lap and be stroked. Mom was very concerned about me and she tried and tried to make me feel better, but nothing seemed to help. I just needed to have Cherokee back in my life, and, obviously, that just wasn’t going to happen. How I missed him so!
Somewhere during this time, Mom quit her second job and was able to spend afternoons and evenings with Dad and me. It was nice, but not like having Cherokee with me. No one to cuddle with on a cold night in the comfy chair.
One day, Mom and Dad went away in the car. When they came back, they had a box with something in it. My first hope was that Cherokee had come home at last. Unfortunately, it was not Cherokee. It was a black and white male feline, but not Cherokee. They introduced us briefly, but kept him in the other room much of the time. Mom and Dad seemed to really like him, but I hated him! It took Mom a couple of days to realize it, but I knew what was wrong with him right away. Right after he tripped over me the first time. I don’t even remember his name now, but there wouldn’t be any point to it anyway. He got around the house pretty well, but when he bumped into the cover of the litter box, Mom began to realize that he was totally blind. She and Dad saw that I hated him, so back he went into the box and out the door.
It was quiet and peaceful again. I slept more and began to eat a little less. I just couldn’t shake the ache in my heart.
One day, when Dad was gone for a business trip, Mom left the house for some time. When she came back, she was carrying a cardboard box with something squeaky in it. I wasn’t sure I cared what was in the box, but there was a little spark of curiosity. Mom opened the box and took out what was inside.
HORRORS!!! She bought me a baby! What on earth possessed her to do such a thing? The baby was kept in the guest room and had to go see the vet almost right away because she was sneezing and coughing and had a constantly runny nose. I figured that was the last I would see of her. Boy, was I wrong! (The only time ever) Mom told me that the baby was a female and after talking to Dad on the phone, she told me the baby’s name was Mina (pronounced MEE na). Since there was someone new in the house to keep Mom company, I began to cut my eating entirely. It was just too sad. I saw that Mina got different food from me. That was upsetting. Maybe she was getting something better. Mom tried to get me to eat a lot of different things, but I wasn’t having any. One day I looked up at her and told her I was hungry (I used sign language – licking my lips with an expectant expression on my face). She looked at me and said: “I have tried giving you everything I can think of. You won’t eat your dry food, you won’t eat your wet food, you won’t even eat tunafish! What more can I do?” I almost saw the light bulb go off over her head at that moment. She got the bag of Mina’s food out of the closet and put some in my dish. I was feeling pretty hungry by that time, and I actually ate some of it. It really wasn’t any better than my food, so I didn’t finish it all, but I decided that my food was pretty good and I began eating again.
Mina became the bane of my life for a while. I got so tired just watching her dash here and there and everywhere. Mom said we should have named her Flash. Mom tried to take pictures of Mina, but she moved so fast that mostly she got pictures of the floor. She was very tiny and her black and white fur made her face look round. Her tail was covered with fairly long black fur and curled up over her back. She had a lot of mischief shining from her eyes. She was afraid of me at first, but much too soon she was jumping out at me, over me, and on me. Sometimes I had to growl and hiss at her to make her settle down a little and behave. I soon took an interest in her grooming and toilet habits. In turn, Mina tried grooming me sometimes. Mom was horrified that Mina would go into the litter box and bring out a little dried treasure to play with. It took a while, but she finally stopped doing that. We were Just We Two – again. Just a different two.
Well, I’m really tired after telling this part of the story. It was most exhausting. I must nap.
Yours,
Apache
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