An Unexpected Thanksgiving Blessing

 Black Friday night, that first night following the turkey/pie/football gorging holiday and all nighter for the truly committed Christmas bargain hunters, our family decided to go to a movie together. We planned to see “The Life of Pi” at the Menomonee Falls theater complex off Appleton Avenue and County Line Road.

The two youngest of our three children and my mother-in-law were going to join my wife and I at the theater. Our oldest daughter had a social commitment later that night and could not join us. Susan and I decided to take our own car and get to the movie complex early to be sure we could get tickets for everyone. We got there about 25 minutes before the stated movie start time.

Being a very windy and cold night, and the fact that I still believe in spoiling your lady as much as possible, I dropped Susan off at the front doors so she could get the tickets while I parked the car. The front parking lots were totally full. So I decided to see if any side spaces were available, which are really great when it is time to leave.

Lo and behold, these spaces retained their veiled secrecy, for plenty were left. So I pulled into the closest one, essentially right outside of the east exit door.

As I got out of the car and began walking toward the building, I heard a sound I hadn’t heard in a long, long time. A desperate ”Meew,” the kind of soultouching helplessness that freezes you in your tracks. I looked all around but didn’t see a kitten near the building, which was from where I suspected the sound came. Instead, as I turned back toward the car, a tiny kitten, probably six to eight weeks old, cried forlornly in the empty parking space between my car and the one to the south.

As a child and teen, I had raised my share of kittens from litters of all sizes. I have had cats my whole life and currently have a great big black indoor cat named Rumsfeld. Our other outdoor cat we had for years disappeared this summer during the drought, apparently becoming dinner for some desperate fox or coyote suffering from the reduced bunny population.

So I immediately went over to the little fella and picked him up. He was so cute but shivering violently and obviously famished. As I sweet talked him and tried to warm him I heard another desperate “mew” and then another. Looking down near the wheel of the other car I saw two more little kitten heads poking out. My heart just broke.

The kitten I had picked up had squirmed out of my hands so I decided to go inside to get Susan so we could come up with a plan. As I turned and started hurrying toward the theater entrance, the little kitten I had held wailed and came running after me, across the driveway up to the sidewalk where he demanded “Don’t you leave me!” So I picked him up again, tucked him into my coat, then went into the movie theater.

When I told Susan what I had found, she immediately said, “We have to save them!” Then I showed her the kitten I had with me and she instantly teared up. Susan always knows what to do in such a situation and she didn’t disappoint. Susan called our oldest daughter and told her to grab the kitty carrier and get over to the movie theater right away (about 20 minutes). We next needed to get the kittens into our car, contained and out of the cold. No problem.

Really.

We put the first guy in the car, trying to contain him in a zippable basket. We then attempted to apprehend the two under the other car. One ran off into a little woods nearby though I could still hear his forlorn cries for help. The other just stayed out of our reach. I took on the challenge of the cat in the woods, leaving Susan to abduct the one under the car.

That crying kitten I was chasing made me look foolish, should someone have been filming the spectacle. It ran under a trailer, through chicken wire fencing, and eventually inside of a fenced in dumpster area of a nearby business office. I opened the gate and went in, thinking I finally had him. He kept me going by continuing to cry for help.

As I looked around this area, I bent down to look beneath the dumpsters. Much to my surprise, there were two kittens cuddled together in a leaf pile in the corner, neither one being the kitten I was chasing. So now there were five.

In the meantime, Susan had managed to corral the other kitten with a little assistance from some people who wanted the parking spot. I then called her to come through the woods where she was to help me trap the three kittens left.

We devised a plan where Susan stood unseen on the outside of the gates and I’d flush them through to her. It worked, and we got those two contained in the car. The elusive one still cried in the woods. So I went back in there, determined to get him. Finally, instead of going under the trailer he climbed inside of it. Then I finally had him.

No sooner had we gotten into the car with our new five guests, my daughter arrived. We wrestled the five into the kitty carrier and she took them home. We went into the movie and watched it as planned, both of us confessing that we could skip the movie and go home to play with the kittens.

When we got home, we let them loose in our laundry room. They were hungry, but now warmed up and super cute. I fed them some warmed milk then some wetted dry big kitty food. They ate, and they were happy. Then they played. And fought. And then they slept.

None of us, all five of us, wanted to go to bed that night. We basked in their sweetness and unbridled cuteness, oblivious to all other concerns. What a great feeling.

This dream lasted for a day and a half, into Sunday, when my oldest daughter had to return to Notre Dame. On her way she would drop off the leader, the one I chased in the woods we named Orion, to a young man in Chicago, a long-time cat lover who was looking for exactly what we had. So by Sunday night there were four.

Three more found homes the next evening. The last one found his home in ours. His name is Noel.

Neither my wife Susan nor my kids had ever raised kittens before. What a wonderful gift these abandoned creatures gave to us! We are so lucky and so blessed that God chose our family to be instruments of his love to transform a heartless act of abandoning five kittens to starvation and freezing into the joy of sharing.

We loved our visitors while we had them. I would have kept them all if I could or needed to. But we were able to share these treasures with other people who would value them as much as we did, bringing happiness and fulfillment to both the kittens and owners.

Thank you, Lord God, for the gifts you have bestowed upon us.