THE BEGINNING
I was living in a condominium complex in Inglewood, California. My townhouse was above the garage where every sound downstairs echoed up.
I was hearing a strange sound in the night. It was sounding louder than it was because of the echo from the underground garage.
MEEEE ----OOOWWWWW!!
MEEEE ----OOOWWWWW!!
It was a baby kitten crying for its mother.
My neighbors all heard the sound too. One of my neighbors – Rosemary – was leaving a dish of cat food outside for the kitten.
One night I saw the kitten – briefly. It was very dark out, and the kitten was black and small. I could just barely see him. As soon as he saw me, he ran away. He was very fast. I asked Rosemary what she was planning to do with him.
Rosemary said she hoped by leaving food out for him, that he would learn to trust her enough so she could pick him up and find him a home. She could not keep him in her unit because she had two grown cats already. I was not intending to have a pet, but this kitten’s cry in the night touched my heart. I told Rosemary if she could catch him, I would keep him.
One Friday night in June it was a hot evening, so I had my front door open to get a breeze. Rosemary walked in holding something in her hand – it was the baby kitten!
"Here’s your kitten", said Rosemary. I asked the kitten what his name is. He opened a HUGE mouth in his tiny head and said:
"MEEEE ----OOOWWWWW!!"
So I made a deal with him. I would take care of him and give him a home and he would provide me with his company for the next 20 years.
This is how I came to have a kitten, and of course his name was MEOW. Meow proved to be a very beautiful, fast, and smart kitty. And very strong-willed.
I tried to train Meow to sit in my lap. I would put him in my lap, and he would walk up my arm or my body, looking me in the eye, and try to get as close as he could to my face.
I was not comfortable with this. I kept putting him back in my lap, and he cried, and he put a most determined look in his eyes, and he found extra strength in his tiny muscles, and he climbed back up to my face.
His determination was too much for me. I finally gave up and let him walk all over me. Then I discovered what he really needed.
Meow was too young to be separated from his mother when he got lost and ended up in our garage. A baby kitten who is that young needs to feel his mother’s heart beat. A person’s heartbeat can be felt very strongly in the pulse at the neck. Meow needed to put his head on my neck.
This is how he was comforted by my heartbeat.
As soon as he put his head under my chin, he put his arms on either side of my neck – like a hug – and then he purred to show his contentment. So now Meow had a mother – me.