Strange night it is, when midnight silence is broken by incessant call for help from an unexpected family member.
At around 12.30 AM in the night as silent as a haunted night, I was awakened to the mother cat purring repeatedly. I knew she must have just arrived after going out for hunt or for food at my teachers’ houses where she had stayed for few months.
‘Is she looking for a missing kitten?’ I thought, suspicious if a male cat had attacked the kittens while I was unaware. She purred from the sitting room as if distraught, as if sad. She came into my bedroom few times meowing and purring. I began to doubt if she was intending to bring the kittens to my bed. I shooed her away, scolding. She had been born in our house and a family pet until she left two months ago and became a loiterer. She gave birth last two months ago to three kitten in one of my Dzongkha teacher’s house. I brought her home to be fed and cared for, but soon after kittens grew she meowed and purred them away. Since then she visited us very rarely.
Two weeks ago she had given birth to three kittens again. This is her fourth birthing season. This time she gave birth at another teacher’s house. I remember her coming home few times when pregnant, looking for food and place to give birth. Today she was brought home with kittens to be kept safe from dogs and children of teachers. The kittens have only begun to open eyes and needed safety, moreso, it has become a legal responsibility for me to care when she needed care and protection, proper shelter and food. After all, motherhood cannot be so much different from human beings!
When she meowed and purred again and again, and walked towards me, I asked, ‘What is it Norbu?’ This was a name we gave her and she knows.
Like she knew I had to be told her intentions, she climbed on my bed, purring, nuzzling on my arm and lashing with her tail. ‘She wants to check her kittens. Maybe one of them is dead.’ I assumed, feeling sorry already. ‘Maybe she is hungry.’ I reassured myself, as I touched her on the back. She jumped of meowing, looking at me. I could understand she wanted me to follow her.
If a mother cat can communicate her worry this way, more consciously than by instinct, she is more human than an animal. This thought saddened me, jerking me off the bed. I went towards the door, and she braced across my legs towards the sitting room. I put on the light. She went to the box as if to tell me to take a look. I looked at the kittens. All three were sleeping calmly. It’s 1 AM, and kittens were sleeping like my sons would, cute and calm.
I knew my previous assumption was right, Norbu was hungry. She had gone out for more than six hours and had neither caught a rat nor got food. I can’t imagine how she may have waited in a trance near some rat hole or waited outside the houses she stayed before.
I called her amd opened the kitchen door to feed her. She raced, purring even more ‘happily’ loud. I scooped fried rice on a paper, cut a milk box and fed her milk. She was lucky that I had bought carton of milk in the evening. She ate the food and lapped the milk like she had returned from a battle field. I felt guilty that I was unable to understand her plea for food earlier. This guilt saddened me even more deeply. I could have kissed her on her lips if she wasn’t a cat, and hugged her with humane strength. I did, in fact.
I left her to feed came to the bed. In few minutes, I herd her meowing again. This time she didn’t came to the bedroom. The meowing was not heard after that. I knew she went to her kittens, fed and happy.
I slumped into the bed, sleepless and thoughtful.
Norbu is more human than a cat can be, more motherly than a mother can be.
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