9 Lives and the Kindness of Strangers

opinion

The Girl Next Door

By Christina Georgiou

It's long been a part of folk wisdom that cats seem to have nine lives. And certainly, in all the years I've had cats, I've seen them pull through some amazing things, but this one may take the prize.

At the end of July, one of my cats, Bella, managed to fall out a second story window of my apartment onto Northampton Street. If that isn't bad enough, he managed to do it when I was either out or in the middle of the night when I was sleeping.

I normally cover open windows with a screen to keep the bugs out, but this one was only open a few inches, and I had real no reason to believe it was a cat hazard either.

But Bella managed to find the opening and since the window overhangs a roof ledge, he apparently thought he'd get himself some clandestine roof time—something he enjoyed occasionally at my last apartment, but that isn't really feasible here.

Bella is 17, and I've had him since the day he was born—in my bedroom closet—to a cat I rescued when I still lived in Bucks County. He was a beautiful kitten, and his Siamese coloration and markings were a complete surprise based on mom's looks and those of his littermates. I realize now his name should have been “Bela” but my Italian is pretty awful, and it ended up being “Bella” instead.

This was well before the “Twilight”series got popular, so the name sort of mystified people, but it stuck and when asked, I just said he was named for Bela Lugosi. As he got a little bigger, the fact that he's got a mischievous streak became apparent, too. Though he's generally a very nice cat, it seemed to fit him.

When Bella fell out the window, I had no idea what had happened. At first, when he didn't appear for breakfast, I thought he'd holed up somewhere and was taking a long nap—being an old guy now, it's something he does now and again. But when I didn't see him for a whole day, I started to worry he'd fallen ill and was hiding somewhere.

I tore my apartment apart looking for him, but no Bella. It took almost two days for me to realize he wasn't in my apartment at all and to piece together how he had gotten out.

Realizing he was lost out on the streets of Easton, I was frantic. Other than a short time when he was a young kitten and I still lived out in the country, he's never really been outdoors—he's strictly been a house cat.

Like any long-lived cat, he's had the occasional bad scrape over the years, but he's made it through. Bella survived the house fire I suffered in 2008—he was literally rescued from the flames by the Easton Fire Department and given oxygen by Easton EMTs, and we both owe his life to them.

A year or two later, at my former residence, he climbed down a tree that overhung the roof, couldn't figure out how to get back up, and spent a few hours alternating between hiding terrified under parked cars and taunting a couple members of the EPD K9 unit in their kennels housed in the city parking deck. But that unintentional adventure lasted only one evening and once rescued, he never tried to climb down a tree off the roof again. (He also had severely limited roof access after that.)

But when he went missing this time, I realized he had practically no chance of even knowing how to get back home, and the traffic on Northampton Street meant he'd be to scared to hang around long, if at all, not to mention, precious time had already passed.

I was more than a little upset. I immediately made up a stack of posters and hung them on nearly every light pole for a 1 to 2 block radius around my apartment and got them posted in several shop windows too. Given his distinctive looks, I thought there was a reasonable chance he'd be found, or at least be seen and recognized by the neighbors.

I also put cat food out in logical (from a cat's standpoint) places nearby, along with spending hours late at night looking for him, when it was most quiet and he was most likely to come out of hiding.

Neighbors saw him on numerous occasions, about every two or three days, but he'd run off every time anyone got close. Despite the hours of hunting and also of sitting quietly near the food I put out twice a day, I didn't have any luck running into him.

This went on for over a month, and then suddenly, there were no more sightings.

At his age, Bella, my “senior dude”, is a very old man, the equivalent of an 80- or 90-year-old person. He's spry for his age, but he's also nearly toothless and a lot slower than he was in his youth. I'm pretty sure his eyesight isn't what is was when he was younger either, which also explains how he slipped and missed the roof ledge when climbing out that window.

I was truly heartbroken and feared the worst. I didn't stop putting out food but I stopped going out every night calling his name for hours. I suspected by then the neighbors were beginning to think I was a little nuts, too. I kind of wondered it myself, but the thought that he might be nearby, sick or injured, was horrible.

Still, given the amount of time since he'd last been spotted, I had to admit, the chances of him coming home were dwindling

But even when things look most grim, fortune sometimes smiles.

This past Monday, my landlord mentioned in passing that a woman told him over the weekend she'd seen Bella hanging out at night by the dumpsters behind the CVS at 15^th Street where she worked, prompted by the poster with Bella's picture still up in his shop window. He'd told her to call me, but she never did.

Still, it was a better lead than I'd had in a long while. I had no idea how he might have gotten a mile down the road. But perhaps someone had managed to catch him and tried to take him home only to have him escape. It was in the realm of possibility, however slim.

So late Monday night, I went to CVS.

The woman that stopped in the shop hadn't left her name, and the only description I had from my landlord was that she was African-American and works at the pharmacy.

The clerk that night, Denice, hadn't seen Bella, and unsurprisingly, more than one African-American woman works there. But Denice patiently listened to the story and agreed to put a copy of the poster in the employee breakroom, just in case. I left with my fingers crossed, though the chance of finding Bella still seemed unlikely.

Wednesday around noon, I got a phone call from a man named Tom, who also works at CVS.

He was working one night a couple of weeks ago at the pharmacy, he said. It was raining hard that night, and at some point, Bella just literally walked in through the automated front door, starving and dehydrated, soaked to the skin and covered in burrs.

Tom said he'd seen Bella out back by the dumpsters a couple of times previously, looking like he was looking for something to eat, but up until the cat walked into the store, he hadn't gotten close.

Instead of shooing him out of the store like a lot of people might, Tom, who happens to be a cat lover, took him home that night to nurse him back to health.

Bella was not in good shape, he said. He'd picked up fleas and a case of worms, in addition to having lost a lot of weight. It took days to get the mats and burrs out of his fur.

Tom patiently cleaned him up, fed him and housed him separately from his own cats. He had no idea how to find me or even that Bella actually had a home and hadn't been dumped, as so many cats are. But he did it anyway.

And Wednesday afternoon, Tom delivered Bella to my front door, along with the food, vitamins and naturopathic supplements he'd purchased to aid in his recovery. He refused to accept any reimbursement for his trouble.

Sometimes I think there are people out there that are really angels in disguise. I don't think there are words to describe how grateful I am.

I'm still in amazed at how things turned out, and I think Bella is too. He's been walking around the apartment, looking at everything again and again, alternately purring and “talking” nearly incessantly. The other cats reaccepted him immediately, although they keep insisting on trying to sniff him as though they're trying to determine where he's been.

Bella is still understandably a little “tweaked” from what must have been a terrible experience, but he's already showing signs of being himself again. He's also been wolfing food down voraciously.

But it's an incredibly happy ending, despite the odds. Other than that the attitude of “never give up” has been proven once again to be a very worthwhile one, the other thing I've had reaffirmed from this is that, that yes, cats do have apparently nine lives.

And, that though circumstances can be seemingly cruel sometimes, there are also some very good people out there. Their actions are what make the world a better place.

My sincere thanks to the several people that collectively helped Bella get home, most especially Tom at CVS!