This was the second post ever on my blog. I was looking through old posts and I thought this tale was worth retelling.
Robert’s asthma and allergy appointment — on his first day home from college for his four-week Christmas break — didn’t go well. The doctor said we could get rid of the cat or put Robert up in a hotel for four weeks.
We’ve only had baby Olive for a year. We’re not too attached, but still. She’s a member of our family. We rescued her from a local pet shelter and committed to be her loving family. And she’s Robert’s little sister’s cat. Not mine. I felt before we agreed to give Olive away, we needed to discuss this with little sis. Or, let Olive be an outdoor cat.
I heard that Robert had posted on FB for a new home for Olive. Of course, as his loving mother, I’m filtered from seeing his posts. Grandpa, on the other hand, has full access to Robert’s FB account. He told me about the long and lengthy post about how I love the cat more than my own son. Short and shorter: we needed to get rid of the cat. Several people had said yes to adopt the furry feline. Some even called me!
Am I a terrible mother for not wanting to give away our pretty little kitty, Olive Bear?
Robert said I’m infected with Toxoplasma gondii and I’m in danger of turning into a crazy cat lady. I “googled” the toxo thing. It’s different than cat scratch fever, which can cause chills and a fever. T. gondii is a protein that invades your bloodstream and makes women crazy about cats. Or, it makes men crazy in a wild way. And there’s a link to schizophrenia. It’s why my OB GYN told me not to change the litter box while I was pregnant. However, he said that if I’d been around cats my entire life, most likely I was already infected. Great.
I know about crazy cat ladies. We had one in my home town. She lived in a house filled with felines and feces. Hundreds of cats. My parents drove me to her house out in the country a few miles from town. The home badly needed paint and had broken floorboards with cats leaping in and out of the foundation. We picked an adorable calico kitten named Pansy to bring home. Pansy died a few weeks later from feline pneumonitis.
I never had good luck with cats. I can name the ones we owned when I was young: Ting, Tack, Tenni-runner, No Name, Thomasina I, Thomasina II, Little Leticia, Bianco (white in Italian), Striscia (stripe in Italian), and my favorite, OJ Simpson. (I was a huge OJ fan. Remember, this was decades before I quit being one.)
We lost these cats (in addition to the aforementioned Pansy) by the time I reached first grade, due to an overzealous cat-hater neighbor. He caught them in a wooden trap, dropped them in a gunnysack, then tossed them in the river.
When we moved out into the country I had Soute´ (a French word from ballet that means jump) from second grade through high school. Coyotes and bears were kinder animals to our kitty than our former neighbor in town.
We adopted Sherman years before we had kids. That allergy doctor told me for years to get rid of Sherman. Robert was allergic to lots more things than cats. Things I couldn’t control, like rye grass and trees. Sherman lived from 1992 for 17 years — until a neighbor’s dog jumped a wall and killed him.
I know it’s terrible not to want to get rid of the cat. I never believed that our cat could be harmful to my child. Now, my son is living in beautiful Santa Barbara, going to college. He’s only home for visits. Or maybe it is the toxoplasmosis that let’s me rationalize all this.
Olive letting her temper show. Once my daughter left for college, Olive became mine. We found a solution to the allergy problem called an air purifier for our son’s room.
Looking back, was I bad mom for wanting to keep the Olive the cat?
What is the topic of your second post on your blog?
