Daphne is the only one left-what a journey this herd of cats that I named the Inheritance have taken me. My mother had begged me one night to care for her cats. I had two- Gus and June… God’s Gift I call them except there is now only Gus. She had a huge herd of cats forty-six cats to be exact. She was dying, and I knew that…my heart was breaking knowing that. She wanted to be sure they would be taken care of after she was gone. I didn’t know that night I made the promise that I would care for them that I needed them. They were a burden, a weight on my back, but I promised… and I never say I promise unless I intend to keep that promise.
I didn’t know …. I needed them…. I had no idea that I needed them. I had no idea what was ahead for me.
I just didn’t know.
I didn’t know that I needed them. I didn’t even know the exact date my mother began feeding this stray solid grey cat with the gorgeous green eyes. She didn’t know this cat was pregnant. Probably one of those cats an owner throws out in the country hoping someone would start feeding their former pet. I would name her Cindy for the cinder color of her fur. It was June 2004 before I knew she and her four kittens existed.
Cindy brought her four babies down to the house to be fed. Four tuxedo kittens, three boys and one very tiny girl who walked with a limp. They climbed up the rail and looked in the window and jumped down and climbed up again. Four kittens and one very proud mama cat looking in my door. I was watching TV and Ma had gone to bed to read when I saw the mother and kittens. I go to Ma’s room and say, “When did you start feeding a stray cat?”
Ma’s face was priceless, but she pretended that she did not know what I was talking about by saying, “What exactly do you mean?”
“There are four kittens and their mother at our door.”
Ma’s eyes began to sparkle as she said, “I couldn’t let them go hungry.” She looked like a naughty imp and had to come see her kittens.
I shook my head because of course she could not let them go hungry. Neither man nor beast ever left our house hungry. My cousin David’s dog Judy used to walk five miles for Ma to feed her. Over the years my father brought home a varied assortment of people to eat at our table. Ma always fed them a feast.
Those first four kittens were given names- Gollum because even as a kitten this grey and white tuxedo had a scary look about him. He disappeared by the time he was grown. The other grey tuxedo kitten I named Grey Beard…and he was a sweet boy. He lived with us about a year and half. Zorro, named after my childhood hero, was black and white. He disappeared after Ma died. Cindy left us about two years after she arrived and after having her two last babies Puff and Bear. Puff the mother of almost every kitten born into the Inheritance, and Bear who was more than happy to abandon her babies with Puff. Then there was Biddie, a tiny crippled girl kitty with huge gold eyes. She was sweet as could be. A gentle shy soul who ran from me for at least 8 years. She lived 14 years with us. She died in May 2018. I cried so hard the day she died. She was a cat I never touched but she touched me with the beauty of who she was.
As those kittens grew, two other kittens a couple of months later came to be what I called God’s Gift which is sad because I did not know that those first four and their mother were also God’s gift to me. I found Gus and June in at a rural dump. Gus came up to me meowing and he was about three months old and hairless… ugly kitten but he let me a stranger pick him up. I didn’t know then that Gus is a love slut and loves everyone. June was shyer, and I had to go behind a dumpster for her. They had been abandoned according to the man there over the weekend and he had fed them all week. He said, “Tomorrow is Friday. If they are not gone, I am calling them to come get these sweet kittens.” That decided me, and they came home with me.
My life went on with working, taking care of Ma, and working. I was tired all the time. My brushes with death in 2001 and 2002 had left me worn out and weary. There was no joy in living. I had lost my cat Dezia of 21 years, my father and two of my brothers, and a very dear aunt. Life went on around me. I barely noticed the herd of cats increasing. Ma fed them every morning as I was leaving for work and fed them again before I got home. I knew there were more kittens… just didn’t know how many.
Their numbers increased for I had no idea how to catch and get them fixed. I named them. They each had to have a name. BlackFace was born a year after they came. A tortie kitten with a fierce attitude and presence and the most beautiful black face thus her name. It was like a polished onyx. Her face reminded me of my college ring. I didn’t name her onyx because that face was fierce even as a kitten. I didn’t know that I would grow to love and to respect my warrior queen cat. I had Teaser and Firecat…. Teaser lived about 10 years and Firecat was blind and died early but what a little fighter he was…He was amazing to watch how he got around from place to place. A predator tom cat killed him. He never became a part of the Inheritance. Firecat was the first cat in the Inheritance for whom I ever cried. I had the four Marx brothers with Harpo being a gorgeous big boy who looked like he was dressed to the nines and never meowed or made a sound. He got in the house once and hid out for a week never making a sound until he was discovered one night. He got out the next day, and as he walked out- I swear he tipped his invisible top hat at me. I never forgot you Harpo.
There was Sally, Jane, Dick, Puff and Spot. Puff had a sister Bear. They were the last of kittens by Cindy. Cindy disappeared while Puff and Bear were young. Puff became every kitten’s mom especially her sister Bear’s kittens’ mom for Bear dumped every kitten she had on someone and usually Puff. When I hear people say that cats are the best mama’s I think… you didn’t know Bear. She was terrible. She was solid grey and had those gorgeous eyes like Cindy. She was a smart cat. Puff was not so bright. Puff also liked to get up in trees way out on small limbs. I would often take a short walk down my very long driveway and there would be Puff up in a tree hanging over the driveway just chilling. She liked to jump up on the rail at the end of the ramp to be fed. After she died, I still put food in her place in remembrance of Puff. Her life was simple, eat, hang out in trees, and teach kitten manners.
I retired in 2006. By then family and friends were telling me to get rid of the cats. They told me that I could take a few off at a time, but I knew Ma needed them. She had to take care of something. She always had. It was who she was. Taking those cats away would break her heart. She had lost so much by then- her parents, both her brothers, three sisters (one as an infant), her husband, two sons, and countless friends. I was not going to add to her losses. One person offered to shoot them for me of which I was horrified for I was beginning despite myself, I was getting attached to them.
In 2007, Ma began to leave us mentally. I began feeding her cats. In the spring of 2007, a wonderful sibling group of kittens was born to Bear and Puff, and because Puff raised them. I never knew whose kittens were whose. There was a calico kitten that I called Quilt and she died as a kitten when she and her sister Mira went on a marvelous adventure. The others were King Louis named for the sun king of France for I was reading a novel about Marie Antoinette at the time and he was a dark yellow kitten with presence. Butter was a muted yellow boy with pale green eyes. There was Spook who was a dark tortie with gold fur around her gold eyes and she could look spooky. Then there was Stripe. My favorite cat in the Inheritance hands-down.
But first to Quilt and Mira. They were five weeks old when they disappeared. I looked for them and had given them up as gone when I saw at the beginning of my drive way a half mile away a kitten in the woods. There was Mira. Quilt was never found. I caught her for I had bought a toy for Gus and June of feathers and caught Mira’s eyes, and I was able to swoop up the purring kitten. I made the worst choice of my life. I returned her to her mothers. I should have kept her inside. Mira is short for Miracle for it was a miracle that I found her. Mira always loved to wander… She did it all her life. She was gone once for six weeks, and I swear she had another family somewhere, but when she died, she came home to me in 2017. She often came inside to visit me, but always went to the door after an hour or two and usually when she was about to go on one her jaunts. As I let her out the door, I always said to her, “You be careful Mira.” She would look up and me and seem to nod that she understood.
King Louis lived up to his name. He had two kingdoms. For the cats lived separate lives- one at the door I went in and out every day and the front door. He ruled both kingdoms and the cats all respected him. He was a wise gentle cat. Those he did not like had to wait to eat. Gizmo he liked but Gizmo’s Brother he did not like. He also came in and out of my house at free will, but he did not want to be someone’s pet for he was a King. I respected that in him. King Louis died in 2017 a few months after his sister Mira.
Butter was a sneaky boy by nature, but he always loved and obeyed his brother King Louis. He had a face shaped like a Siamese and he was long and lean. I loved Butter. He would follow King Louis into my house for a treat or two but was always at the door yelling to get back out within minutes. He had a loud Siamese cry. He was the last of this sibling group to leave me and that was on Christmas Eve day 2018. Rest in Peace my big sneaky boy… I love you.
Spook was the cat that came back for one last visit. She disappeared in September 2010. She was a huge loss to me. She walked with me like Mira did sometimes. She would come and sit down beside me when I was outside. Then one day my girl was gone. Then in late November one night she was back. She rubbed against my leg and it was like a wonderful gift was returned. It was the same day that I found the cordless phone that had disappeared outside, and it was downstairs on a table still charged five months after it went missing. A table I walked by every day of those five months and it was not there. That table was totally cleared of everything one month after that phone went missing. Spook was not the only one to come back for one last visit before going. I grew up with folklore and ghosts and people who saw it as part of life. To me it is just part of life; I know most of the educated world doesn’t believe that way. That is okay. I don’t expect them to follow my lead, but I do expect them to respect me. Spook came to me when I was feeling the depth of my loss. I had in 2008 and 2009 lost twelve people I loved. I lost my coon hound and my darling June. I was about to fall into poverty. Spook and that cordless phone let me know that love continues even after someone has left this life.
Then there was Stripe. She had the green eyes of Bear and Cindy. She was as bad a mother as Bear. She was my favorite cat and she loved me. She would come in the house to get her head rubbed and then go to the door to get out fast. She once got under my dishwasher. How I never knew. She was a black tortie and had this one yellow stripe across her forehead and white eyebrows. She was tiny and feisty, and I called her my gangster kitty for she ruled everyone’s life. I loved her so much. I tried to trap her to get her fixed, but she would look at me as if to say, “You are crazy if you think I will get in there.” She never did. The last time I saw her was in May 2014. I never saw her or Bear again after that visit for both of my girls loved to roam. A year or two later my neighbor told me that his dogs had killed many of my cats. I knew that was how my lovely Stripe had died but she lived her life- free and wandering.
By the beginning of 2008, I knew our time with Ma was at an end. In early March the three sisters Spook, Mira and Stripe stole every cat’s kittens and put them under the grill on my front porch. There were twenty-one kittens. They stayed there for about a week. Then the mothers came and kidnapped kittens back. They were gone for a couple of weeks but only five of those twenty-one survived. Those five were Carley, Callie, Pumpkin, MiniMe and Silk. Carley and Callie were mirror images of each other. Pumpkin was the first to leave us. Silk lived a good six years and then died. That left Callie, Carley and MiniMe who were always together. A year after Silk died Callie was no more. I lost Carley and MiniMe this past year in late November Carley died; MiniMe was totally lost without her and died the first of December.
One night in March 2008, Ma said to me, “Mary Elizabeth two (she did not think I was her daughter, so I was not the first one but the second one-the imposter), I want you to take care of my cats.”
“Ma, there are a lot of cats (forty-six to be exact and more being born)>”
Ma persisted, “Mary Elizabeth two, promise me you will take care of my cats when I am gone.”
I sat there thinking and looking to her eyes. She barely remembered anything present, but she wanted me to care for her cats. I decided I would make that promise. I don’t break promises. I stay true to them to the end. I have made few promises in my life. The year was already full of losses, my last uncle, my last brother, and a friend’s daughter had died, and I knew I had one more at least. Holding back tears, I said, “Ma I promise I will somehow take care of your cats.” After Ma died, those cats became The Inheritance.
People, good people advised me to get rid of those cats. I made a promise; I would not break it. I lost twelve people, my dog, and my cat June over two years’ time. My heart was breaking. People told me repeatedly to let them go, I made a promise. I fell into poverty for Ma did not leave me much money. I had retired to care for Ma and was too young for social security. Two women sent me money and I used it to pay for the food of the Inheritance. One day I realized I had no money to heat my home. I had no money to feed me and the cats. I got a letter that day with $63.00 enough to feed the cats. A friend gave me food for two months. I got a part time job. I was struggling day to day and yet The Inheritance that I did not think I needed kept me going. I would not survive without them. They were a life line thrown out to a drowning person who did not know they were drowning until it was almost too late.
In 2010 I found Anderson Voices for Animals and they helped me get all those cats fixed except the few that would not go into a trap. They were all fixed. I wrote a book about my journey though grief which has never been published because it is an odd book of poetry and personal essays of how I made it through each stage of grief, I call it “The Time I Did Not Dance.” Maybe one day I will find a place for it.
I had two cats join the Inheritance… Wayfaring, a black female and Stranger, a one eyed big yellow male that King Louis did not like for he always had to wait until King Louis finished before eating.
I got involved in cat rescue due to an owner surrender cat who died in a shelter in Georgia in July 2013. I took in one of the Inheritance in October 2013… I named her Pearl after Janis Joplin. In less than six months she would die from the kitty form of Polycystic Kidney Disease that in human form took my father and three brothers lives. In June 2014 I knew I met real horror face to face in a woman who took from shelters and people over 800 cats of which only about a hundred was accounted for and most of those accounted for was dead. Seeing the pictures sent me into depression. Then the coyotes came calling and I lost 13 cats in three months… Stripes last babies Jellicle and Eliza Jane was in that bunch. Feisty fierce little girls who fought with each other but always defended the other when something attacked their sibling. I know my girls went down fighting.
I didn’t know I needed them, but I did. They came into my life to save me, to keep me going when I was broken and lost and forgotten. They gave me purpose to keep on going. They greeted me when I came home and were always glad to see me. There was no one glad to see me like they were. In February 2016 I was frozen in by an ice storm. I had family elsewhere who tried to reach me, but my phones were down. No one called or came to check on me. It was like I was not even here. The Inheritance and my four inside cats Gus, Cassie, Binkey and Tillie kept me going through those days of incredible cold and incredible sense that I did not matter. People live like this all the time forgotten and alone. People died like this all the time. The song Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles touched a chord in me at that time but during those days I knew it was true. I needed the Inheritance to remind me that I was not forgotten, and I was still needed, but I needed to understand that there are those who are forgotten and who are not needed.
I dealt with people laughing at me calling me the crazy cat lady. Sometimes it was in jest; sometimes it was not. It always stung a bit for I loved the Inheritance. Some were quick to tell me good each time one of them died, and that hurt deeply. I tried my best to understand from their point of view they felt these cats were a burden. I had felt that way once. I get that, but they had long become my salvation. When I was sleeping over eighteen hours a day when my iron was low, and I was seriously depressed, I got up to feed them. They needed me to continue when I had no strength to continue. They were a precious gift from God.
I also knew that this gift was not a forever one that one day they would be gone. At the beginning of 2018 and after King Louis died, I knew the time was coming that the Inheritance would be no more.
Age and PKD and sometimes coyotes the Inheritance dwindled. Slowly until this 2018. The years that end in 8 are never good… I started work with foster children in 1978, two of my brothers died in 1998, and my last brother and Ma died in 2008. Ten years I had kept my promise. Biddie turned 14 in May and died a couple of weeks later. One of those kittens that started me on this journey was gone and I cried. Everything seemed okay until November. The first of November OC disappeared, then Carley was gone and then Mini Me, but Mini Me was Carley’s constant companion. I suspect she died of a broken heart. Then Zelda died, the one I took from a cruel woman in 2014. Zelda gave me so much joy. Butter disappeared the next day. Treasure died by New Year’s Eve.
Four days ago, my warrior queen girl BlackFace disappeared. I loved her onyx polished black face… I am not ready to say she is dead, but on the day, she did not come to eat, I drove to Hartwell as the sun was setting. No one was on the road with me- part of the reason I like driving that road, and I looked to the sky, the sun was behind the clouds and was glowing thru the clouds which looked like BlackFace’s face except grey and the glowed thru her eyes like the fire I knew was her spirit. The sun rays were like golden whiskers, and I wept so hard I had to pull over for I knew in my heart of hearts she was telling me goodbye in a most glorious way.
I loved those cats in my Inheritance. I loved our walks. I loved that they greeted me when I came home. I gave them all names… there was Rat-tail ( BlackFace’s last child), Gizmo, Gizmo’s Brother, Teddy and JJ, Pumpkin, Zeke, Zane, Fancy, OoglyFace, Lemon, Apple, Jax, Rascal, Silk, Ghost, The Captain, Lacey, Gladys, Soot, Shadows, Wayfaring (called Farah) Sable, Mable, Oil Spill, Grover, Sugar Babe, Babe, Smokey, Spite, Malice, Stranger, Dainty, Precious, Cherished, and others whose names I have forgotten but faces I remember. I love these cats for they kept me going by giving me something to care for in life. They were and will be one of the biggest blessings in my life which if I had followed all the advice of others, I would have had them all killed years ago. They gave me more than I ever gave to them.
Many will be glad that there is only Daphne. I must think what is best for Daphne for it must be terribly lonely for this sweet very shy girl. I also know I am at a new place in my life, and quite frankly it is scaring me, but I have picked up pieces of my life too many times, and I know I have it in me at least a few more times. As sad as I am, I am so thankful for those wonderful cats in my Inheritance. Thank you for sharing your lives with me. I miss you each time I step out my door. I miss you when I come home, and you are not there greeting me. I have been in hard places before and I know I am a steel magnolia. Ma raised me to be one.
Love you dear ones, and Ever,
Mary Elizabeth Todd
I didn’t know …. I needed them…. I had no idea that I needed them. I had no idea what was ahead for me.
I just didn’t know.
I didn’t know that I needed them. I didn’t even know the exact date my mother began feeding this stray solid grey cat with the gorgeous green eyes. She didn’t know this cat was pregnant. Probably one of those cats an owner throws out in the country hoping someone would start feeding their former pet. I would name her Cindy for the cinder color of her fur. It was June 2004 before I knew she and her four kittens existed.
Cindy brought her four babies down to the house to be fed. Four tuxedo kittens, three boys and one very tiny girl who walked with a limp. They climbed up the rail and looked in the window and jumped down and climbed up again. Four kittens and one very proud mama cat looking in my door. I was watching TV and Ma had gone to bed to read when I saw the mother and kittens. I go to Ma’s room and say, “When did you start feeding a stray cat?”
Ma’s face was priceless, but she pretended that she did not know what I was talking about by saying, “What exactly do you mean?”
“There are four kittens and their mother at our door.”
Ma’s eyes began to sparkle as she said, “I couldn’t let them go hungry.” She looked like a naughty imp and had to come see her kittens.
I shook my head because of course she could not let them go hungry. Neither man nor beast ever left our house hungry. My cousin David’s dog Judy used to walk five miles for Ma to feed her. Over the years my father brought home a varied assortment of people to eat at our table. Ma always fed them a feast.
Those first four kittens were given names- Gollum because even as a kitten this grey and white tuxedo had a scary look about him. He disappeared by the time he was grown. The other grey tuxedo kitten I named Grey Beard…and he was a sweet boy. He lived with us about a year and half. Zorro, named after my childhood hero, was black and white. He disappeared after Ma died. Cindy left us about two years after she arrived and after having her two last babies Puff and Bear. Puff the mother of almost every kitten born into the Inheritance, and Bear who was more than happy to abandon her babies with Puff. Then there was Biddie, a tiny crippled girl kitty with huge gold eyes. She was sweet as could be. A gentle shy soul who ran from me for at least 8 years. She lived 14 years with us. She died in May 2018. I cried so hard the day she died. She was a cat I never touched but she touched me with the beauty of who she was.
As those kittens grew, two other kittens a couple of months later came to be what I called God’s Gift which is sad because I did not know that those first four and their mother were also God’s gift to me. I found Gus and June in at a rural dump. Gus came up to me meowing and he was about three months old and hairless… ugly kitten but he let me a stranger pick him up. I didn’t know then that Gus is a love slut and loves everyone. June was shyer, and I had to go behind a dumpster for her. They had been abandoned according to the man there over the weekend and he had fed them all week. He said, “Tomorrow is Friday. If they are not gone, I am calling them to come get these sweet kittens.” That decided me, and they came home with me.
My life went on with working, taking care of Ma, and working. I was tired all the time. My brushes with death in 2001 and 2002 had left me worn out and weary. There was no joy in living. I had lost my cat Dezia of 21 years, my father and two of my brothers, and a very dear aunt. Life went on around me. I barely noticed the herd of cats increasing. Ma fed them every morning as I was leaving for work and fed them again before I got home. I knew there were more kittens… just didn’t know how many.
Their numbers increased for I had no idea how to catch and get them fixed. I named them. They each had to have a name. BlackFace was born a year after they came. A tortie kitten with a fierce attitude and presence and the most beautiful black face thus her name. It was like a polished onyx. Her face reminded me of my college ring. I didn’t name her onyx because that face was fierce even as a kitten. I didn’t know that I would grow to love and to respect my warrior queen cat. I had Teaser and Firecat…. Teaser lived about 10 years and Firecat was blind and died early but what a little fighter he was…He was amazing to watch how he got around from place to place. A predator tom cat killed him. He never became a part of the Inheritance. Firecat was the first cat in the Inheritance for whom I ever cried. I had the four Marx brothers with Harpo being a gorgeous big boy who looked like he was dressed to the nines and never meowed or made a sound. He got in the house once and hid out for a week never making a sound until he was discovered one night. He got out the next day, and as he walked out- I swear he tipped his invisible top hat at me. I never forgot you Harpo.
There was Sally, Jane, Dick, Puff and Spot. Puff had a sister Bear. They were the last of kittens by Cindy. Cindy disappeared while Puff and Bear were young. Puff became every kitten’s mom especially her sister Bear’s kittens’ mom for Bear dumped every kitten she had on someone and usually Puff. When I hear people say that cats are the best mama’s I think… you didn’t know Bear. She was terrible. She was solid grey and had those gorgeous eyes like Cindy. She was a smart cat. Puff was not so bright. Puff also liked to get up in trees way out on small limbs. I would often take a short walk down my very long driveway and there would be Puff up in a tree hanging over the driveway just chilling. She liked to jump up on the rail at the end of the ramp to be fed. After she died, I still put food in her place in remembrance of Puff. Her life was simple, eat, hang out in trees, and teach kitten manners.
I retired in 2006. By then family and friends were telling me to get rid of the cats. They told me that I could take a few off at a time, but I knew Ma needed them. She had to take care of something. She always had. It was who she was. Taking those cats away would break her heart. She had lost so much by then- her parents, both her brothers, three sisters (one as an infant), her husband, two sons, and countless friends. I was not going to add to her losses. One person offered to shoot them for me of which I was horrified for I was beginning despite myself, I was getting attached to them.
In 2007, Ma began to leave us mentally. I began feeding her cats. In the spring of 2007, a wonderful sibling group of kittens was born to Bear and Puff, and because Puff raised them. I never knew whose kittens were whose. There was a calico kitten that I called Quilt and she died as a kitten when she and her sister Mira went on a marvelous adventure. The others were King Louis named for the sun king of France for I was reading a novel about Marie Antoinette at the time and he was a dark yellow kitten with presence. Butter was a muted yellow boy with pale green eyes. There was Spook who was a dark tortie with gold fur around her gold eyes and she could look spooky. Then there was Stripe. My favorite cat in the Inheritance hands-down.
But first to Quilt and Mira. They were five weeks old when they disappeared. I looked for them and had given them up as gone when I saw at the beginning of my drive way a half mile away a kitten in the woods. There was Mira. Quilt was never found. I caught her for I had bought a toy for Gus and June of feathers and caught Mira’s eyes, and I was able to swoop up the purring kitten. I made the worst choice of my life. I returned her to her mothers. I should have kept her inside. Mira is short for Miracle for it was a miracle that I found her. Mira always loved to wander… She did it all her life. She was gone once for six weeks, and I swear she had another family somewhere, but when she died, she came home to me in 2017. She often came inside to visit me, but always went to the door after an hour or two and usually when she was about to go on one her jaunts. As I let her out the door, I always said to her, “You be careful Mira.” She would look up and me and seem to nod that she understood.
King Louis lived up to his name. He had two kingdoms. For the cats lived separate lives- one at the door I went in and out every day and the front door. He ruled both kingdoms and the cats all respected him. He was a wise gentle cat. Those he did not like had to wait to eat. Gizmo he liked but Gizmo’s Brother he did not like. He also came in and out of my house at free will, but he did not want to be someone’s pet for he was a King. I respected that in him. King Louis died in 2017 a few months after his sister Mira.
Butter was a sneaky boy by nature, but he always loved and obeyed his brother King Louis. He had a face shaped like a Siamese and he was long and lean. I loved Butter. He would follow King Louis into my house for a treat or two but was always at the door yelling to get back out within minutes. He had a loud Siamese cry. He was the last of this sibling group to leave me and that was on Christmas Eve day 2018. Rest in Peace my big sneaky boy… I love you.
Spook was the cat that came back for one last visit. She disappeared in September 2010. She was a huge loss to me. She walked with me like Mira did sometimes. She would come and sit down beside me when I was outside. Then one day my girl was gone. Then in late November one night she was back. She rubbed against my leg and it was like a wonderful gift was returned. It was the same day that I found the cordless phone that had disappeared outside, and it was downstairs on a table still charged five months after it went missing. A table I walked by every day of those five months and it was not there. That table was totally cleared of everything one month after that phone went missing. Spook was not the only one to come back for one last visit before going. I grew up with folklore and ghosts and people who saw it as part of life. To me it is just part of life; I know most of the educated world doesn’t believe that way. That is okay. I don’t expect them to follow my lead, but I do expect them to respect me. Spook came to me when I was feeling the depth of my loss. I had in 2008 and 2009 lost twelve people I loved. I lost my coon hound and my darling June. I was about to fall into poverty. Spook and that cordless phone let me know that love continues even after someone has left this life.
Then there was Stripe. She had the green eyes of Bear and Cindy. She was as bad a mother as Bear. She was my favorite cat and she loved me. She would come in the house to get her head rubbed and then go to the door to get out fast. She once got under my dishwasher. How I never knew. She was a black tortie and had this one yellow stripe across her forehead and white eyebrows. She was tiny and feisty, and I called her my gangster kitty for she ruled everyone’s life. I loved her so much. I tried to trap her to get her fixed, but she would look at me as if to say, “You are crazy if you think I will get in there.” She never did. The last time I saw her was in May 2014. I never saw her or Bear again after that visit for both of my girls loved to roam. A year or two later my neighbor told me that his dogs had killed many of my cats. I knew that was how my lovely Stripe had died but she lived her life- free and wandering.
By the beginning of 2008, I knew our time with Ma was at an end. In early March the three sisters Spook, Mira and Stripe stole every cat’s kittens and put them under the grill on my front porch. There were twenty-one kittens. They stayed there for about a week. Then the mothers came and kidnapped kittens back. They were gone for a couple of weeks but only five of those twenty-one survived. Those five were Carley, Callie, Pumpkin, MiniMe and Silk. Carley and Callie were mirror images of each other. Pumpkin was the first to leave us. Silk lived a good six years and then died. That left Callie, Carley and MiniMe who were always together. A year after Silk died Callie was no more. I lost Carley and MiniMe this past year in late November Carley died; MiniMe was totally lost without her and died the first of December.
One night in March 2008, Ma said to me, “Mary Elizabeth two (she did not think I was her daughter, so I was not the first one but the second one-the imposter), I want you to take care of my cats.”
“Ma, there are a lot of cats (forty-six to be exact and more being born)>”
Ma persisted, “Mary Elizabeth two, promise me you will take care of my cats when I am gone.”
I sat there thinking and looking to her eyes. She barely remembered anything present, but she wanted me to care for her cats. I decided I would make that promise. I don’t break promises. I stay true to them to the end. I have made few promises in my life. The year was already full of losses, my last uncle, my last brother, and a friend’s daughter had died, and I knew I had one more at least. Holding back tears, I said, “Ma I promise I will somehow take care of your cats.” After Ma died, those cats became The Inheritance.
People, good people advised me to get rid of those cats. I made a promise; I would not break it. I lost twelve people, my dog, and my cat June over two years’ time. My heart was breaking. People told me repeatedly to let them go, I made a promise. I fell into poverty for Ma did not leave me much money. I had retired to care for Ma and was too young for social security. Two women sent me money and I used it to pay for the food of the Inheritance. One day I realized I had no money to heat my home. I had no money to feed me and the cats. I got a letter that day with $63.00 enough to feed the cats. A friend gave me food for two months. I got a part time job. I was struggling day to day and yet The Inheritance that I did not think I needed kept me going. I would not survive without them. They were a life line thrown out to a drowning person who did not know they were drowning until it was almost too late.
In 2010 I found Anderson Voices for Animals and they helped me get all those cats fixed except the few that would not go into a trap. They were all fixed. I wrote a book about my journey though grief which has never been published because it is an odd book of poetry and personal essays of how I made it through each stage of grief, I call it “The Time I Did Not Dance.” Maybe one day I will find a place for it.
I had two cats join the Inheritance… Wayfaring, a black female and Stranger, a one eyed big yellow male that King Louis did not like for he always had to wait until King Louis finished before eating.
I got involved in cat rescue due to an owner surrender cat who died in a shelter in Georgia in July 2013. I took in one of the Inheritance in October 2013… I named her Pearl after Janis Joplin. In less than six months she would die from the kitty form of Polycystic Kidney Disease that in human form took my father and three brothers lives. In June 2014 I knew I met real horror face to face in a woman who took from shelters and people over 800 cats of which only about a hundred was accounted for and most of those accounted for was dead. Seeing the pictures sent me into depression. Then the coyotes came calling and I lost 13 cats in three months… Stripes last babies Jellicle and Eliza Jane was in that bunch. Feisty fierce little girls who fought with each other but always defended the other when something attacked their sibling. I know my girls went down fighting.
I didn’t know I needed them, but I did. They came into my life to save me, to keep me going when I was broken and lost and forgotten. They gave me purpose to keep on going. They greeted me when I came home and were always glad to see me. There was no one glad to see me like they were. In February 2016 I was frozen in by an ice storm. I had family elsewhere who tried to reach me, but my phones were down. No one called or came to check on me. It was like I was not even here. The Inheritance and my four inside cats Gus, Cassie, Binkey and Tillie kept me going through those days of incredible cold and incredible sense that I did not matter. People live like this all the time forgotten and alone. People died like this all the time. The song Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles touched a chord in me at that time but during those days I knew it was true. I needed the Inheritance to remind me that I was not forgotten, and I was still needed, but I needed to understand that there are those who are forgotten and who are not needed.
I dealt with people laughing at me calling me the crazy cat lady. Sometimes it was in jest; sometimes it was not. It always stung a bit for I loved the Inheritance. Some were quick to tell me good each time one of them died, and that hurt deeply. I tried my best to understand from their point of view they felt these cats were a burden. I had felt that way once. I get that, but they had long become my salvation. When I was sleeping over eighteen hours a day when my iron was low, and I was seriously depressed, I got up to feed them. They needed me to continue when I had no strength to continue. They were a precious gift from God.
I also knew that this gift was not a forever one that one day they would be gone. At the beginning of 2018 and after King Louis died, I knew the time was coming that the Inheritance would be no more.
Age and PKD and sometimes coyotes the Inheritance dwindled. Slowly until this 2018. The years that end in 8 are never good… I started work with foster children in 1978, two of my brothers died in 1998, and my last brother and Ma died in 2008. Ten years I had kept my promise. Biddie turned 14 in May and died a couple of weeks later. One of those kittens that started me on this journey was gone and I cried. Everything seemed okay until November. The first of November OC disappeared, then Carley was gone and then Mini Me, but Mini Me was Carley’s constant companion. I suspect she died of a broken heart. Then Zelda died, the one I took from a cruel woman in 2014. Zelda gave me so much joy. Butter disappeared the next day. Treasure died by New Year’s Eve.
Four days ago, my warrior queen girl BlackFace disappeared. I loved her onyx polished black face… I am not ready to say she is dead, but on the day, she did not come to eat, I drove to Hartwell as the sun was setting. No one was on the road with me- part of the reason I like driving that road, and I looked to the sky, the sun was behind the clouds and was glowing thru the clouds which looked like BlackFace’s face except grey and the glowed thru her eyes like the fire I knew was her spirit. The sun rays were like golden whiskers, and I wept so hard I had to pull over for I knew in my heart of hearts she was telling me goodbye in a most glorious way.
I loved those cats in my Inheritance. I loved our walks. I loved that they greeted me when I came home. I gave them all names… there was Rat-tail ( BlackFace’s last child), Gizmo, Gizmo’s Brother, Teddy and JJ, Pumpkin, Zeke, Zane, Fancy, OoglyFace, Lemon, Apple, Jax, Rascal, Silk, Ghost, The Captain, Lacey, Gladys, Soot, Shadows, Wayfaring (called Farah) Sable, Mable, Oil Spill, Grover, Sugar Babe, Babe, Smokey, Spite, Malice, Stranger, Dainty, Precious, Cherished, and others whose names I have forgotten but faces I remember. I love these cats for they kept me going by giving me something to care for in life. They were and will be one of the biggest blessings in my life which if I had followed all the advice of others, I would have had them all killed years ago. They gave me more than I ever gave to them.
Many will be glad that there is only Daphne. I must think what is best for Daphne for it must be terribly lonely for this sweet very shy girl. I also know I am at a new place in my life, and quite frankly it is scaring me, but I have picked up pieces of my life too many times, and I know I have it in me at least a few more times. As sad as I am, I am so thankful for those wonderful cats in my Inheritance. Thank you for sharing your lives with me. I miss you each time I step out my door. I miss you when I come home, and you are not there greeting me. I have been in hard places before and I know I am a steel magnolia. Ma raised me to be one.
Love you dear ones, and Ever,
Mary Elizabeth Todd