Road Trip: Detour Part Three

On the road of life, detours avoid a road that is dangerous and chaotic. The original woodpile kitty took a detour which took her from a dangerous, chaotic place to a safe, peaceful place. It is my story; perhaps this is your story as well.

It was October in south Texas, a time when the only way to gauge that fall is here is by the way the sun lies low in the sky and not by the temperature. I went out to the garage to talk to my husband when I heard the most pitiful meow.

I looked at him and he looked at me. He had chosen to ignore the meowing. Not me, “I think there’s a kitty behind the garage.” And with that I went to look.

Like an old woman hides her legs under a long skirt, our garage hides a conglomeration of ugly things: a pile of old flower pots, a stack of bricks, a neat-as-a-pin stack of firewood and a ramshackled pile of old wood. But no kitty. I decided that it was probably in one of the neighbors’ backyards.

However, every time I went to the garage, I heard that same meowing. And every time I’d scan the area behind the garage. Sometimes I’d walk around the flower pots, brick stack, firewood, and woodpile, but I did not find a  kitty.

When Butch got home from work I gave him the kitty report. His answer: I think you’ve got Claude Rains back there.

“Huh?” I said.

“Yeah, Claude Rains, the guy who played the invisible man in that old movie. You’ve got the invisible cat out there.”

I knew there was a kitty out there and I was determined to find it. I wanted it to live in my house where it would be safe.

The next day as I walked through the house, I happened to glance out the window. And there, bouncing across the lawn like a baby kangaroo, was a little grey kitty.

Armed with a flashlight I went to search in earnest. Like CSI, I shined my flashlight around the pile of old flower pots, behind the stack of bricks, in the crevices of the neat-as-a-pin stack of firewood. There was only one place left.  I shined my flashlight around and into the ramshackled pile of old wood. I got down on my knees and shined it up into the woodpile and there, glinting in the beam of the flashlight, were two little eyes. Ah-ha! I found it.

I put some food out on the lawn in view of both the house and the woodpile. Slowly but inevitably, the little kitty came out of its hiding place and ate it. I gradually moved the food closer and closer to the patio until the kitty was eating on the patio. In the morning, if we were extremely quiet, we could catch the kitty sleeping on the patio cushions. The slightest noise, and shoom! It was off to the woodpile.

Every day I plotted and planned how to get close enough to catch it. I wanted more than anything for it to live with us in our house.  After about a week, I knew I was not going  to catch it with my bare hands. Not to be deterred, I borrowed a live trap from my veterinarian. The kitty didn’t weigh enough to trip the latch  so Butch rigged it so the door would close. Finally after several attempts, we caught it. And it was mad. Around and around the trap it ran, nothing but a grey blur. When it finally stopped, we took the trap, kitty and all, into the bathroom.

For a couple of days the woodpile kitty lived in our bathroom. I’d go in periodically and pet it and pick it up. When I heard purring, I knew we had ourselves a new kitty. We were able to determine that it was girl. The name? Claude, of course.

After her woodpile experience, she did not like to be petted, much less picked up. Nevertheless we cohabited peacefully.

One morning according to my habit, I went into my study to have a quiet time. Claude came in, sat at my feet and began meowing and meowing. She acted like she wanted to be picked up. So I did. I held her up on my shoulder under my chin and stroked her soft fur. She was so still, cuddling up to me. And then she started purring.

Sitting there in the quiet, I remembered that we had no idea where Claude came from or how she got in the woodpile. I wondered where she would have ended up without our detouring her into our house and family. As I thought about Claude’s detour, I clearly saw my own detour.

I had gotten myself into a woodpile when I got pregnant as a teenager. I knew enough about teen moms to know that I should have been divorced; I should have had multiple children with multiple men. I should not have graduated from high school, much less college. I should have lived in poverty. None of that was true for me. God had detoured me into a life with a husband who loves me, a good marriage, wonderful children, blessings too numerous to list.

I translated Claude’s kitty language of purring into my language. “Thank you”, she said, “thank you for rescuing me from the woodpile. Thank you for inviting me to live with you in your house.” In her little kitty way, she was saying, “I love you”.

Claude and I had each been led on a detour out of the woodpile. Like Claude, there was nothing I could do to repay my rescuer. All that was necessary was the giving of thanks for all my rescuer has done, is doing and will do for me.

Thank you, Father, for the detour out of the woodpile and into your house where it is safe and sound.