Ruthie

A cat has come into my life. Ruthie, I’ve named her. “Friend.”* A little tabbie who has lived outdoors, shown up at my doorstep as little more than a kitten, and adopted me. Now, as of May 18, I have adopted her.

I first became aware of her one night a couple weeks ago. I was lying in bed reading–or perhaps watching YouTube, I forget–when I heard something go thump! against the window. Huh. That’s odd, I thought. And kept reading.

A minute later, I heard another thump. This time I glanced at the window. A small feline was attached to the screen like Velcro, legs splayed, eyes wide with wonder, gazing in at the miracle world on the other side of the glass.

Hi, cat. You’re pretty ambitious for such a little thing, to jump so high motivated by nothing more than curiosity about what lies at the apogee. Lucky you. You scored a screen to hang on to and my princely mug to feast your eyes on.

The cat became a daily visitor on my patio. She was skin and bones, and finally a thought occurred to me: Why not give her some milk? I set out a saucer full, and she attacked it with all the intensity that hunger can muster. The milk quickly disappeared, so I recharged the saucer, and she was on that second round in a flash.

Hmmm . . . what else could I give her? Oh, hey, how about a chunk of ground beef from my spaghetti sauce? I fished out a lump, washed off the tomato sauce, and crumbled the meat next to the saucer by the cat. She paused, sniffed the new entree, and then launched into it with singular focus.

So began my relationship with Ruthie. It didn’t take long to gain her trust. For an outdoor cat, she seemed to be cut from indoor fabric, and though it took a slow, easygoing approach, she soon allowed me to scratch behind her ears, and she responded to being petted by running her purr machine full throttle.

A couple days ago, as I lay by the open screen door watching her, she cautiously ventured a few feet inside my apartment. What she saw apparently met her approval, and she began to explore further. The living room. The dining area. The hallway . . .

And that is how, after sixty-three years, I have come to be owned by a cat.

I now have a litter box (which she took to right away), a bag of dry cat food, several cans of moist cat food, and two bags of kitty treats. Ruthie has more food than I do right now. At first she seemed like a bottomless stomach, but her hunger has leveled off and she is filling out. She will not go hungry again. She has her very own human, and a home, and a name. She is going to have it good–I will do my best to see to that.

What is it about trust, need, and the longing to belong and to be loved that reaches my heart? Maybe it’s because my own heart is the same way.

Thank you, Lord, for my new friend, Ruthie. I know you have blessed this new relationship, even engineered it (because you know what a softie I am). Now please help her to grow into me, and me to grasp your heart in new ways as I love on this beautiful little spark of life.

* * *

There is a new wrinkle to this story. No sooner did I hit the “publish” button than a knock came on my door. It was a couple of young women, one of whom is my new neighbor in the apartment next door. A sweet gal in her early twenties. Might I have seen her cat, she wondered. Turns out that Ruthie is her emotional support animal, Ruthie’s real name is Honey, and Honey is due to have kittens in a week or so. I’d never have guessed; she doesn’t look pregnant.

Ah, well. Good-bye, little sweetheart. To me you are Ruthie. It was nice to have had your company for a while.

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Ruth is the main character in the book of the Bible named after her. The name Ruth means “friend” or “companion,” and that is exactly what the biblical Ruth proved to be to her widowed mother-in-law. Ruth’s tale is one of loyalty, character, and ultimate blessing, and out of her line came the Messiah, Jesus.