AS OF my last count, 14 felines have made our humble abode their home. Eight of them are indoor, while six are outdoor. Yes, it’s quite a tribe, and we expect it to continue to grow in the coming years.
About half of them are rescues who have claimed ownership over our bed, counter, dining table, my daughter’s study desk, and kitchen appliances. The other half are strays who have found comfort atop our service vehicle, front yard, and garden.
Their names are Cookie, Sandy, Bean, Snowbert, Nacho, Biscuit, Lemon, Caramel, Snowberta, Bulinggit, Puti, Gray, Gray-Gray, and Gray-Gray-Gray. I can no longer recall who gave their names, but I think most of them were given by the missus.
What I do remember, though, is how our fur babies came into our lives. Each of them has memorable stories of how they came to us, stole our hearts, and officially became part of our family.
Cookie, the matriarch of the clutter, was found by my son in a garbage dump. Sandy, the shy one, was left to our care by her original owner, who said that she would be picked up a few weeks after, but never showed up.
Bean, a pure white British Shorthair and the biggest of the group, was also left to our care but was no longer taken back by its owner. Snowbert, the kindest of the tribe, was my sister’s cat and was given to me when they started planning for their relocation to the Visayas.
Nacho ran under our car one rainy night. I had to make an abrupt stop, as my son scooped him up and put him in a safer place by the roadside. As we were about to leave, he once again dashed under our car. My son and I decided to take him home.
Biscuit, who rivals Bean in size, clawed his way up our kitchen window one morning, asking for food. My son put him in one of our spare cages to feed him. He gobbled up the fish we gave him as if he had not eaten in days. We now share the same pillow.
My wife and I spotted Lemon under a bao-bao, scavenging for food. He was feeding on barbecue scraps left behind by customers. After a brief chase, I finally caught him and put him in the backseat of our car. He now sleeps beside us and acts as our alarm clock.
I found Caramel hiding under a wooden log in our garden one morning. What drew me to him was his painful cry. He was nursing a broken leg and could not walk. We fed him until he grew stronger and finally recovered after a week. Then, after a month, he was gone.
We thought that he decided to leave and find another home, as most strays do. After almost two weeks, he was back. He was bleeding from his head, eyes, and ears. His face was disfigured and was hardly recognizable.
My son and I rushed him to the nearest vet. The diagnosis: he had multiple concussions after being hit by a blunt object several times. Due to his critical condition, he had to be confined for close monitoring. He also had to undergo surgery to remove his damaged left eye.
My wife and I cried every time we visited him in the clinic where he stayed for a week. We were enraged. How could someone do such a cruel act to a beautiful and gentle creature? With the grace of God, his surgery was successful. He is now home and sleeps beside my son.
Snowberta and her daughter Bulinggit, Puti, Gray, Gray-Gray, Gray-Gray-Gray are community cats who have chosen our home as their safe space. At the break of dawn, they are already lined up in front of our gate, waiting for their meal.
I am not sure if they are all biologically related except for Snowberta and Bulinggit. But they have developed a strong bond akin to humans. They never fight over food. They would share meals and patiently let each other take turns in the water dispenser we had set up.
Taking care of 14 cats with different personalities is not a walk in the park. All of us have had numerous anti-rabies shots over the years due to bites and scratches whenever we tried to break up a tussle or overstimulated them.
But it’s okay. We can never imagine our home without our fur babies running all over the place and sowing chaos. We prefer a chaotic, topsy-turvy house to a place that is silent and devoid of life.