Territory

Twelve years ago, one of our cats contracted cancer. During the course of her treatment, we took her to a specialist for various tests and therapies. Some days, we dropped her off at the clinic in the morning and returned to pick her up again later that afternoon. Other days she had to stay the night.

When we arrived at the clinic one evening to bring her home, a vet tech greeted us and said he would bring her right out, then disappeared through a door into the back. Five minutes went by, then ten. The clinic was always busy, so at first we didn't think much about it. After fifteen minutes we began to wonder. About that time, the same tech came out and asked me if I would come with him. "We're having trouble coaxing her out." I followed, wondering how that could be. This wasn't the first time she'd had to stay with them. Over the progression of her illness, we'd had to leave her more than once. On those occasions we had visited her each evening, much to her enjoyment and relief. She seemed to derive a great deal of reassurance from our presence even if she only sat on one of our laps while we petted her for an hour or two and read our books. During those visits, the techs had never had any trouble bringing her out.

For those who don't know, this cat's name was Felicia. I gave her that name after she didn't stop purring for the first two days she was with us, even while she slept. We took her in as a foundling, a stray kitten with four burned paws and infected bite wounds on her belly and tail crying on our doorstep. Once inside, she seemed happy and grateful to have found a sanctuary from the trials of her first three months of life.

Her arrival for me was one of those magical moments of synchronicity that we cherish for a lifetime. Days before she found us, I had been thinking of all the things I would want in a cat if I ever had one. Her disposition perfectly matched my desires, as though someone had gone down a list and checked off each item one by one. Affectionate, check. Curious, check. Playful, check. Tolerant, check. Smart, definite check. Female, check. They even threw in tactics for free, a skill she needed nearly constantly in her first few weeks with us as she defended herself and her territory against Karen's socially-challenged, resident cat. The only thing I hadn't thought about was her coloration. She was a black and tan tortoiseshell calico, a muddled mix of color I still find striking, though perhaps I may be biased. Indeed, love is often blind, or at least needs a strong, vision-correcting prescription.

Very quickly, Felicia became like a familiar to me, greeting me every morning, rubbing my leg goodbye before I left for work. She met me at the door when I returned each evening and always came to say good night before I went to sleep. She would follow me from room to room for days after I returned home from a business trip as if trying to make sure I wasn't going to abandon her again. She would come to find me anytime I made a greeting noise, a kind of high-pitched, reverse whistle. When Karen and I argued, she would sit between us, looking from one of us to the other, purring, taking neither side. She got along with all her feline companions, even the ones who didn't get along with each other. She was cautious around strangers but warmed to most people. She was never trouble at the vet. In short, she was the sweetest cat I could ever ask to share my life with.

So when I went back to the bank of cages where the clinic kept their patients while they waited to be retrieved, I was surprised to see three vet techs standing in front of an open door, all with very concerned looks on their faces. "We can't get her out," one of them said. They watched horror as I approached the cage and peered inside. Felicia was huddled as far back as she could get, crouching defensively, ready to strike out at anything or anyone who came near. Without thinking, I made my greeting call, stuck my hand inside and let her sniff it, then scooped her out without a struggle. No problem. I didn't need a leash or a carrier, I just held her in my arms as she purred. She still had the catheter strapped to her front leg from treatment, a kind of temporary kitten chemo port.

When I turned back, the techs were aghast and amazed. One of them said, "I've done this for years, and I NEVER would have stuck my hand in that cage." Talking to them, I found out she had been hissing and spitting and clawing each time they approached her cage, like she was wild or rabid. They had tried calming her, then coaxing her, and then had broken out the heavy leather gloves. They were about to resort to a neck loop when they called me in. She was completely unwilling to emerge. She was guarding her food and water bowls possessively, defending them from atop the padded sleeping mat inside her cage like Custer on his final hill. That steel enclosure had become her territory, her new home, even if cramped, cold and uncomfortable, her place of greater safety in a suddenly confusing and uncertain world.

In college, I took a course on the Holocaust. Reading the accounts of survivors, it struck me that no matter how long people endured sub-human conditions, they tended to cling to two things. The first was the people that they knew, their family, their friends, even relative strangers they recognized from their village or town. The other was the scant possessions they retained. With people they knew they shared what they had to the extent that they could, at times even when it might endanger their own survival. But if a stranger tried to take something from them, a rag, a cup, a spoon, even a space on a bunk could become worth a life or death struggle. When the camps were liberated, a few people refused to leave the setting with which they had become so intimately familiar over years of tortured existence, choosing an impoverished present over a completely unknown future. That I live in a world where such things still happen tears my heart apart.

But humans, like all mammals, like all members of the animal kingdom, fight to survive no matter how desperate their situation becomes. Survival situations change us all in unpredictable ways. Sometimes we struggle against events we perceive as threatening simply because they are unknown. There are days I have to strive to remember that when strangers act in a particular or peculiar way, as I am sure some people try to remember with me, even some who know me, or at least think that they might.

There are few instincts greater than that of defending a territory we consider to be our own. Perhaps only the imperatives to find food and water and a mate are more strongly embedded in our psyche. And there are few more touching moments than realizing that someone trusts you enough to abandon a defensible position and expose themselves to danger because they know you will keep them safe. It's a solemn trust that can be difficult to uphold, and one that I treasure being granted if only once a dozen years ago.

I hope you have someone with whom you share such a bond at least once in your life. If you are so privileged, remember to cling to them as you see each other through these increasingly unsettled times. As you do, remember to purr, to comfort one another, to remind each other that no matter what the territory in which you find yourselves that everything will be all right as long as you share that trust.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III