Bobby Sox

Cats. I grew up in a dogs-only house. Then I had a son who lost his great grandfather.

Grandpa was Jonathan's best friend. They played checkers together. They sat in the patio swing together. They were 2 yings or 2 yangs and they weren't looking for their compatible other halves. They were just fine together on the bedroom floor playing with building blocks my great grandfather had cut and sanded for Grandpa when he was a boy Jonathan's age.

Then Grandpa developed Alzheimers-senility-old age. At 93 it was bound to happen sometime, right? Most days he didn't remember most of us. He did always think my mom was Maxie, his wife, which was sweet that he remembered her, even if he didn't pick the right person as Maxie. It was probably because my mom took care of him like Maxie always had. Grandpa was able to build or fix anything well onto age 90, but was clueless if it was 11:01 am (dinnertime) or 4:01 pm (suppertime) and Maxie (or mom) had not set food on the table. We may never eat again if food did not appear on the table at those times, I really think he believed. He was from an earlier era that had those expectations of habit and conformation.

While he forgot most things and most people, he ALWAYS knew Jonathan on sight immediately.

Then in 2001 we lost Grandpa. Jonathan was in fourth grade. I was lucky that a friend of mine from high school, Julia Kapos, was his teacher. She gave him the time he needed to deal with everything.

During this time Jonathan and I were on our own and we had moved into an apartment. One night during a storm we came home to a scared, wet, pitiful young cat cowering in our doorway. Now, I knew nothing about cats. By nothing I mean n o t h i n g. However, after looking at him and then looking at my son's face, I let the cat in and we put her in my son's bathroom. She was good all night, so the next morning I left her in my son's room as we left for school. That evening I came home expecting the chair, bedding and curtains to be shredded, but instead found the cat stretched out on Jon's bed. So, she became our Bobbie Sox...

That is, until we took her to the vet. It was then I learned that male kitty parts are "retractable" and do not show. For a dog person, that info is still weird to me. Needless to say by the end of the vet visit Bobbie Sox was Bobby Sox.

The name came from his little white paws. He looked like he was wearing Bobby socks. Jonathan thought he looked like a bobcat - I think that was his thought in order to sound more macho.

Jon was also convinced that Bobby Sox was sent by his Grandpa because Bobbo liked to curl up in Grandpa's chair that Jonathan had "inherited." (Inherited here means refused to allow us to donate it to Goodwill, would not let anyone else have or use it and insisted that it was now his as it was a guy's chair.)

That cat was instantly Jonathan's best friend. They existed together in Jon's room, two kindred souls that didn't have to talk, just knew what each was thinking and what each needed.

So, an abandoned cat, "sent" by my Grandpa, turned me into a cat-person because he healed my son's heart. Now, we are dog and cat people.