Dogs scared her (it took her a long time to get used to the idea that
we had dogs living in the backyard).
Moving from the apartment to the house really scared her (she hid in
a closet and wouldn't come out for days).
One evening in 1981,
a musician friend of mine handed me a tiny bundle of
silky gray and pink fur with huge eyes.
And so Oberon entered my life.
Obie was a barn kitten,
half-feral and very definately skittish of
anything that either moved or was bigger than her.
Which at 8 weeks was almost everything!
When we got home, Obie promptly went into hiding under the bed.
Not even
Merlin
could convince her to come out.
Eventually the lure of food and a clean litter box brought little O-Cat
out from under the bed.
That's when she discovered that she could hide under the sofa, or behind
the curtains, or behind the books in the bookcase.
Yep, Obie was a timid cat.
Loud noises scared her.
People scared her.
Dogs scared her (it took her a long time to get used to the idea that
we had dogs living in the backyard).
Moving from the apartment to the house really scared her (she hid in
a closet and wouldn't come out for days).
Even though she was scared of almost everything, Obie loved the great outdoors. She liked to hang out in the garden under the crepe myrtle. Another favorite spot in later years was under the canna lilies next to the pond. She could sit there and watch the birds in the arbor, or watch the fish in the pond. Obie never caught a mouse, bird or even a bug in her life. She was always content to just watch the world go by.
Obie did have her share of adventures.
I was putting boxes away in the attic one day, and left the ladder down
while I did something else for a few minutes.
Later that afternoon I heard some very faint meows, so I counted
the cats: Merlin, Callie, Simon, but no Oberon.
I looked and looked, but couldn't find her.
Then I noticed that the other cats were walking around with their heads
tilted up to the ceiling.
"Oh, no! She can't be up there!"
I ran out to the garage and pulled down the ladder to the attic.
And standing there, staring down at me, complaining very loudly,
was Obie!
One day Obie ran away.
She managed to knock out the screen on one of the back patio windows
and get outside.
Then something must have scared her, because she disappeared.
Some friends helped me put up "Lost Cat" fliers all around the neighborhood.
I could track her progress up and down the block as people called with
sightings.
My friend Eric even went out in the middle of the night with a flashlight
to look for her.
(He's lucky no one called the police!)
After 3 days, one of the neighbors called to say Obie was in their garage.
Eric and I went to rescue her.
Obie was so glad to see us that she ran all the way home!
Obie was not the friendliest of cats. She didn't like very many people. In fact, for many years the only one of my friends that she liked was Ruth. Maybe she knew that Ruth loved cats. Whenever friends would come over, Obie would disappear into one of the closets. After I bought her a cat play pen (a big kennel), she would sit in her home and glare at people. She never bit or scratched anyone, but she had a "this is torture" attitude that drove people to leave her alone. Give Oberon chow, water, kitty treats and the (very) occasional brushing and she was a happy cat.
As happens to all of us, Obie grew old. She stayed in her kennel all of the time. She didn't eat very much and lost a lot of weight. Her fur, once so soft and silky, became brittle and ragged. She even stopped playing with Oliver Wendal "Rambo" Cat, although he never stopped trying to play with her. Finally, one rainy day in June, Oberon crossed the Rainbow Bridge to join her friends Merlin and Simon in that cat Nirvana where the sun is always shining and the treats are always right at paw.
Copyright © 2000 by Liz Gensheimer.