In Memoriam

It happened yesterday. Butch emailed me that Claude had died while he and Nancy were at church. You don’t recognize that name, do you? But you do know who that is. It’s the Woodpile Kitty, the original Woodpile Kitty. If you visit this blog’s site (woodpilekitty.com) instead of reading posts delivered through your email, you will see to the right of the screen a short blurb about the Woodpile Kitty and a photo of her wistfully looking out the back door toward her woodpile. I thought I had written a blog about her when I first started this blog way back in 2011, but I looked before writing this and, no, I did not. So here’s her story.

It was 2004. A long, long time ago it seems. Butch was in the garage and I went out to tell him something. That’s when I first heard meowing. He had not heard all the time he had been out there. It sounded like it was coming from the behind the garage. So I went to investigate.

Our garage was detached from the house. Behind it we stored all kinds of things: wood for the fire place, scrap wood from various projects, a neatly stacked pile of bricks, various flower pots and the compost bin. By the time I got there, the meowing had stopped. Nevertheless I half-heartedly looked around. There was no kitty.

Oh, well, I thought, maybe it was my imagination or maybe the kitty just left.

For the next couple of days, every time I went to the garage I heard the meowing and every time I investigated. But always the meowing stopped and I didn’t find a kitty.

Butch came home from work one evening and we were standing in the house looking out the glass door as I gave the kitty report for the day.

“I think you have Claude Rains out there,” Butch pronounced.

“Who?” I said.

“Claude Rains. You know, the Invisible Man. You’ve got the invisible kitty back there.”

A day or so later, I looked out and saw a little grey kitty hop across the backyard and disappear behind the garage.

I knew it! There is a kitty back there. I got a flashlight and, determined to find her hiding place, I went to investigate properly. In front of the scrap wood pile I practically laid down on the grass as I shined the light up into the pile. That’s when I saw two red eyes staring back at me. I had found her!

Now all my energy went into coaxing her onto the patio so I could catch her. I put a dish with food in it out in the yard and watched her eat it. Each time I refilled her dish I moved the plate a little closer to the patio until finally she was coming onto the patio to eat the food.

Soon she was sleeping on the patio furniture at night. If we were very quiet we could see her when we first woke up. But one sound and–shoom!–she was off back to the woodpile in a grey blur. There was no way I was ever going to be able to put my hands on her. So I got a live trap from my veterinarian. I was able to lure her in with some food but she was so light that she didn’t trip the latch. She would simply eat the food and then saunter back out again. That’s when I knew this was a job for Butch.

He rigged up a string that ran from the house into the trap. He would pull it once she was in the trap to get the door to drop. I was on watch. We waited and soon she was back in the trap. I gave the signal and Butch pulled the string. The door dropped and the kitty went berserk. She ran around the cage so fast, hissing and growling, that she looked like a grey blur. I was afraid she was going to hurt herself. But finally her energy was spent and she huddled in the corner, her body heaving from the exertion and, I imagined, also from fright.

Butch took the trap with her in it, into the bathroom and opened the trap door. We left, closing the door behind us. We left her in there for several days with food and water. I went in periodically to talk to her and touch her. Finally she let me put her in my lap. Even though she didn’t try to escape, she was not relaxed.

When we opened the door to let her wander the house, she got up the courage to leave the bathroom. And immediately found a place to hide. We would eventually find her but then she would hide again in another place. We spent a lot of time looking for her to be sure she was ok. She never came to us for petting. We never heard her purr. She didn’t even meow. The only way we knew she was ok was that her food and water disappeared.

And, yes, we named her Claude, the Invisible Kitty.

One day I was sitting at my desk when she came in and sat at my feet, meowing. This had never happened before. I didn’t know what to do. Should I pick her up or would that just scare her into running away? But I studied her. She really seemed to want to be picked up. So I did and cuddled her on my shoulder. She cuddled back. And started purring! It felt as if she was saying she loved me and she was glad to be living with us. We sat like that for several minutes before she started squirming and I put her down.

I told Claude’s story quite a few times at retreats I led, in children’s sermons at my church and sometimes just talking with friends. In those stories I always ended by saying that I had lived in a woodpile until I was rescued by God. Since I am prone to wander back to the woodpile, I have be rescued all over again and again and again.

However, recently I have begun to think of Claude’s story as a lesson about fear. She was afraid to leave her woodpile and come into the safety of the house and being cared for by Butch and me. She was afraid until we forced her. She would never have chosen to live with us by her own volition. Like Claude, many times my fear has kept me from trying new adventures and experiences or even kept me from taking action on the more mundane aspects of life like making a difficult decision or doing something in a new way. What have I missed out on because I was too afraid to try? Even here God steps in to somehow work my fear for my good.

By the time Butch and I got divorced–a situation that carried a lot of fear with it–we had acquired another little rescue kitty, Frank. Butch agreed to keep both of them for me until I was settled and had a place to live that was suitable for cats. If I ever decided I did not want them, he said he would keep them. After about a year I starting considering bringing them to live with me. However, for several reasons I decided not to have them and signed over my parental rights. It was a difficult decision, one that I felt guilty about. But, in the end, it was the best decision for all.

This summer Claude got sick.  The vet found a tumor in her stomach that mysteriously disappeared.  She began to improve but she was old.  It was inevitable that soon she would leave us.  And so she did.  I am sad but remembering how she came to live with us and her funny habit of running under the bed when anyone rang the doorbell brings back happy memories.  And now telling you what Claude taught me will, I hope, somehow keep her memory alive.  

So, good-bye, dear Claude.  You are loved even though you are gone.  I’ll see you later in your heavenly woodpile. 

As always,

Woodpile Kitty ATX