As a kitten on my Aunt Mid’s farm, Kit slept on the enclosed porch, but spent his days chasing after anything that moved. Birds. Butterflies. Falling leaves. When my aunt died and we inherited Kit, we turned him into a neutered, indoor cat. Not that he complained. He had a cat door to the upstairs deck, where he continued to chase after flying, falling things, and he was well-pampered. When our move from Pennsylvania to Virginia became a long, slow process involving several mini-moves, we gave Kit to our son, Nathan, for safekeeping, and Nathan did not care to give him back.
Now, having lived with Nathan in Georgia for several years, Kit is aging and sickly. He is to the point where many folks would consider euthanasia, but not us. How can we put down a bright-eyed, always purring cat? Instead, we decided to put him outside. “You might as well kill him,” our daughter Megan said as she ordered him a supply of special diet cat food.
“It’s the Secondhand Lion approach,” my husband said, referring to the film of two robust older men who set loose an aging lion on their Texas farm the same summer they take in a great-nephew.
Like the Texas farm men and the secondhand lion and most of the senior citizens who come to this part of Coastal Georgia for the remainder of their lives, Kit is behaving as if he is years younger. He is active and alert and eating heartily. Perhaps he is senile and imagines himself back on the farm of his youth as he chases after palmetto bugs and live oak leaves. Or perhaps, like the rest of us, he knows his time is short and he wants to enjoy every moment.
Now, having lived with Nathan in Georgia for several years, Kit is aging and sickly. He is to the point where many folks would consider euthanasia, but not us. How can we put down a bright-eyed, always purring cat? Instead, we decided to put him outside. “You might as well kill him,” our daughter Megan said as she ordered him a supply of special diet cat food.
“It’s the Secondhand Lion approach,” my husband said, referring to the film of two robust older men who set loose an aging lion on their Texas farm the same summer they take in a great-nephew.
Like the Texas farm men and the secondhand lion and most of the senior citizens who come to this part of Coastal Georgia for the remainder of their lives, Kit is behaving as if he is years younger. He is active and alert and eating heartily. Perhaps he is senile and imagines himself back on the farm of his youth as he chases after palmetto bugs and live oak leaves. Or perhaps, like the rest of us, he knows his time is short and he wants to enjoy every moment.
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