The Cats of My Life: Allie

I think I was in sixth grade when I got Allie. It was a big deal. Our previous cat (who I haven’t talked about yet) had died and I’m not sure if we had gotten Cleo yet or not. My mother had a friend at work who ran a rescue group, and for the first time I was to go and pick out a cat for me.

The place was just an apartment overcrowded with cats of every color. I do remember there was this big orange one my mother wanted, but I wasn’t sure, there were just so many! Then this big grey tabby tomcat jumped on a garbage can and called me over. He was the one. Being uncreative in the naming department at the time, he became “Allie” because he was an Alley cat.

When we took him home it turns out he was sick, so he had to stay in my room for a while. At the time I had a ‘big sister’ through the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program. We did somethings, but for the post part she just brought me stuff back from her travels, a lot of cat items because at the time my motto was “Animals are my favorite people.” One of the items that she had brought me from Italy was a hand-painted scarf that I used on top of my dresser. Of course, that was Allie’s favorite spot to lie as he drooled out his illness. All the inks ran.

Allie was a big boy, and just a glorious cat. My brother commented on how scared he was all the time. But our house wasn’t exactly quiet. I used to have this one Polaroid picture of Allie curled up in a ball surrounded by my dolls. He was just so beautiful.

Sometime later Allie had urinary blockage and was in the hospital. When he returned I read up on ash and magnesium and how to take care of him so the crystals didn’t build up.

I don’t have any pictures of Allie anymore, I don’t know what happened to them. The only ones I even remember is the one I mentioned above and one where he was, I think, in-between the screen door and main door. My brother used to lock him out on the back porch because Allie would jump up through the hole in the screen door and balance to get our attention.

Should I warn you now, this doesn’t have a happy ending? There is a lot I blank out on about Allie and the memory I do have was the first one I worked on with my current doctor. It’s called ‘Immersion Therapy’ and I have to close my eyes and keep going back into the memory and telling it and connecting to all the emotions and that whole unification process I talked about. I also have to recognize the situation and that what happened wasn’t my fault.

I think there was something to do with cat litter. There is a vague recollection of my mother throwing the litter box into my room, and I put up my hands or feet to deflect it and it spills all over. She’s yelling at me, screaming. I don’t even see her, just the darkness that is her in my memory and those piercing grey-blue thundercloud eyes. She’s raging. Something about not doing my chores, not cleaning the litter box, not being responsible.

The next part I remember is trying to hide Allie and myself. She had threatened to take him away, said I couldn’t take care of him. I know I could take care of him; I already had through two illnesses. But my mother is claiming I don’t deserve the cat.

In the next part I remember I’m screaming, crying. She has taken Allie away, said she was bringing him to the pound to teach me a lesson. I don’t let up all night. How could she do that? How could she take away my animal, one she made such a show of me getting, for whatever her reasoning was? How could she so callously strip me of some living thing I loved?

The next day she says that because I’m being such a brat and to shut me up she’ll go get him back. Nothing about her feeling guilty for what she’s done. I just want her to understand how much she hurt me. That she, the mother, has caused me great pain. When she returns she tells me that he is dead. “They got a lot of animals in that night and put him to sleep,” she tells me. “He was just so frightened they didn’t think he’d do well. You know, if you hadn’t tried to hide him and scared him even more he’d probably be alive right now.” She continues by saying that now we can’t get another cat from the shelter because she has been added to the database of people who bring their pets in.

That was the part that hurt me for so many years – she blamed me. If I hadn’t of tried to hide him, he’d be alive. She shifted all of the blame on me. For so long I carried that burden. If I hadn’t have chosen him but gone with the orange cat, Allie would have lived a longer and happier life. Maybe the orange cat would have died in his place, maybe not. If I had just done the chores my mother told me too, if I had acquiesced, if I hadn’t tried to hide him, if, if, if. They swarmed around.

Bottom line though is she killed my cat and took the coward’s way out by shifting the blame to me, a 12-year old girl, her daughter. Instead of taking responsibility for hurting her children and now, taking a life, she passed the buck and rationalized how she was in the right and everyone else was wrong and ‘caused things to happen’ or ‘caused her to do things.’

How dare she. How dare she take a life that I loved, destroy it, and blame me. It’s taken a while to get to the point where I can say it with conviction, and I’d love to add a few curse words in here, but how dare she ever do such a thing. I think that was a major turning point for me. After Allie died I remember being filled with rage toward everyone. I hated so much. The love in my life was so horrifically taken away and I just blamed myself. However, I think I did begin to realize, somewhere within me, that there was no chance of my mother redeeming herself in my eyes. It started me down the road to total disgust with her, a road that has helped me separate myself from her actions and from believing I could ever be like that monster.

Picture from: http://www.allcrossstitch.co.uk

Flashback Central - Three Stories of 'Friendship'

Today has been a weird day I think. For some reason I’m remembering moments with friends where I feared I did something wrong, or, where now I recognize what they did was wrong and I let it happen. All this tends to make me physically dizzy, and, to some extent with a rumbly tumbly.

I think I’ll go scenario by scenario.

#1 – College, Senior Year.

I had gone down to the soda machine in the basement and it ate my dollar – no soda. No refunds either as I recall. So about a week later my roommate asked me to go down and get her a soda, and I agreed. Well, wouldn’t you know the machine spat out two bottles? (I swear- she and I were the only ones who got the ginger ales anyway.) So I went back happy saying, “oh look, it finally gave me my bottle!” but she said because it was her dollar that got the two sodas it was hers. In the end I did get the soda, as ‘her gift’ to me.

Well that was the first memory, and I wondered about the ethics of it. Was it really her bottle as it was her dollar? She knew I lost the dollar earlier, and had I been in her shoes I wouldn’t have questioned the claim that the bottle belonged to each of us. After all, she had intended to get only one bottle of soda with her one dollar, and I had lost one earlier. There was no difference in standing than when I left the room. So was I being presumptuous in claiming that bottle as my lost one and had my act to get her soda, originally an altruistic deed, turned into a motive of profit and/or theft? Was I stealing her soda? Technically, this time it was her dollar.

I spent entirely too much time trying to figure out the ethics of this one. The machine owed me a soda, and I got it from the machine. But did I do so at her expense? Honestly, I’m at the ‘let it go’ point. There was a valid claim to that drink.

#2 – College, Junior Year

A friend who I would have to write multiple posts about, R, and I are going on what is my first vacation. I have done all the booking, put it on my credit card, and planned it all out. When I finally go to the ATM to get out 150$ spending money, the machine gives me 300$ instead. It is late at night so there is no one in the bank. I tell my mother and she immediately wants to drive to the bank and get a withdrawal, thinking it’s free money. She tells my brother and he calls his friends. They all go to the machine. Meanwhile, I call my bank to check my balance – there is only a 150$ difference.

My family comes back dejected – the machine is out of money.

So I tell my friend about this and she suggests I call the bank. I do, multiple times, and finally they say that there is no record of me withdrawing any more than 150 and that ATM is now out of service. I will not be charged more than 150 and since there is no record they cannot accept cash from me except to deposit it in my account. So, yeah! Extra money for my first vacation.

But, when R finds out about this she insists that half of this is hers because we are going on the trip together. It was my account, my worries, (and remember, I made all trip arrangements anyway) but she insists that as my travel partner I give her half, especially since it will cover most of the bus fare up there. I say no again. She then tells me that God sent me the money to do the right thing – split it with her. Again, and this time aghast, I tell her no.

Now, I know she was in the wrong with this one. She was an extension of my mother, one I got rid of a few years before my mother, but equally as controlling in many respects. So after the trip I fill out all the paperwork to get my tax refunds for the hotel and she insists on half. She did pay for half of the hotel, so fine. But it turns out the total is something like 52.35. Since half of that is 26.175 she decided she should get the extra half a penny – 26.18. She argues the point incessantly, and I, being the me at the time, give her the half a penny rather than argue.

#3 Twelve Years Old, Sunday School

This one also involves R. At Sunday School they had this treasure chest and the minister had a bag full of keys. Every Sunday he made a show about putting in a new shiny toy. There were fire trucks, my little ponies, princess castles, a Crayola backpack that I wanted, etc. You could go up and pick a key each week for remembering your Bible verses from the previous week, being picked by your Sunday School teacher, or one key for each new friend you brought to church. So I brought R. and won! I was so happy, the backpack and the princess castle were calling my name.

Now, I had fully intended to share with her as she was my friend. For so many weeks I had remembered my Bible verses and tried lots of keys. Of course, the Sunday school teacher asked me which toy I’d give my friend for helping me win. Then R. decided it was an equal share, because without her I wouldn’t have won. There were at least 12 toys anyway, so I was fine with that. We’d take turns picking out toys. Then she says she gets first pick. I didn’t like that. But she insists that it’s only right in God’s eyes that since it was through her coming I won. She starts to get mad. Did I mention she and my mom got along super well? Lol, my mother considered her the daughter she wish she had had. Every time I had wanted to stop being her friend my mom sat me down and had a talk with me about keeping her around.

Anyway, in the end I acquiesced and she took the backpack! I was so friggen upset. I still got the Princess castle that did special thinks with a magic ‘key’ and other stuff, but not the backpack.

So as I’m thinking over all these things I begin to feel distressed. I berate myself. “Why the hell did you let her walk all over you?” I asked myself. “You were such a f*cking wimp. What the hell? Couldn’t even stand up for a ½ a penny, let alone your backpack. You earned those Sunday School toys, why did you let her take them?

Then I started to feel lower and down on myself. Then the internal dialogue begins. There is the one me berating my childhood self, and the other recognizing that I was so beaten down by my mother I did what I was told. R. was an extension of her and the fact that I stood up to her in the college scenario shows progress and a development of self. I shouldn’t insult myself for actions that were deemed necessary to avoid conflict – something I lived in constantly anyway. It was my feelings of self-worth and like I was ‘undeserving’ for everything that let her have the backpack, not me.

It’s all so exhausting, to have to talk myself up after each little memory sneaks up triggering others and they just keep flowing and flowing. Then I have to talk down those feelings of powerlessness that come up. Then I berate myself for how petty this all must sound, a backpack, a soda and ‘found’ money.

Photos taken from the following sources:
http://www.britsuperstore.com/
http://www.simplydumb.com/
http://www.churchsigngenerator.com/