The legacy

Three stray cats, a mother and her two kittens - one yellow, one black - adopted us a few weeks ago. We had seen the mother hanging around the house, and she didn't appear to be afraid of us. I can't recall when we saw the whole family, but Jan and I decided to begin to feed them, if only to help the helpless, vulnerable kittens and their mom who was nursing them.

They appeared to live under our deck at the front of the house. My dog Moses had begun to dig a tunnel under the deck to get to them. We corralled him in the house, and bought canned cat food and solid kitten food, and put a bowl of each out on the deck in the morning before Jan went to work, and in the evening as it got cooler outside. We sat in our deck chairs and watched what appeared to be a happy, thriving family.

I named the mother "Minnie," for "Skinny Minnie." Was she ever - skin and bones, but with six tiny teats under her belly to feed her babies, whom we called Yellow and Black. When we brought the food out, Minnie normally appeared in a few moments. A couple times, we saw her trotting toward us, coming from the east or west. She set herself to eating the canned food.

When she moved on to the hard food, she slowed eating, and began growling in an endearing way. She was calling her babies up to eat, to play, to have fun for a bit.

We never were able to touch the babies. They were skittish. If we laid so much as a finger on them, they'd scoot under the deck and re-emerge slowly.

It was great fun to watch them play. Mom would often groom herself, sitting in a relaxed fashion on the deck, and the kittens would cavort together, often quite funny.

As you grow older, you wonder what your legacy will be among those who survive you. I said to Jan that at least we'll be remembered for giving some dogs and cats some good homes, what has become a small parade of dogs and cats through our lives, each of them well taken care of. And this time, it didn't matter whether they belonged to us. We couldn't help ourselves - they needed someone.

We're not alone. There is a veritable industry of abandoned animal caregivers that is thriving, including the Friends of Michigan Animal Rescue organization in the Belleville area, to whom we brought our cats. Many thanks to them - an organization that runs on kindness, energy and commitment.

Because the cats couldn't stay at our house. The situation with the nice weather wouldn't last, and the kittens would grow and become feral. Minnie and Black would inevitably become pregnant, creating more trouble for all of us. We had just lost some baby birds to a clever, resourceful, persistent raccoon on the back deck, and we couldn't bear the thought of losing the kittens in a similar manner.

So we said goodbye last week. We miss them - we were responsible for a while for helping a small family survive and even to have fun and security. And that's enough for now.