A Cat Named Bass
I’ve experienced some pretty unusual things in the many years I’ve been involved in cat and other animal rescue. Bass the cat’s story is certainly one of the most unusual.
I first met Bass when I was about to pull out of my vet’s parking lot. Just as I was leaving, a man pulled in next to me, opened his trunk and pulled out a cat. The cat wasn’t in a carrier, it had ridden to the vet office in the trunk.
I don’t know about you, but if I put any of my cats in the trunk of my car (not that I ever would) without a carrier they wouldn’t exactly be calm or stay put when I finally opened the trunk. But Bass was calm. So calm that her/his owner easily picked the cat up to take it into the office. To be euthanized.
I asked the owner why he was going to euthanize his cat. I asked if she was sick. His answer stunned and angered me at the same time. He said it wasn’t sick but he’d had it 20 years and the darn thing should have died long ago. Since it didn’t, and he was tired of taking care of the cat, he was going to just “get rid of it”.
He’d had the cat since it was a young kitten and it had obviously lived despite his lack of care. I asked if the cat was male or female, he didn’t know but he figured “it” was a boy since it never got pregnant and went outside sometimes. Bass turned out to be a girl.
A blind girl.
I told him I’d take his cat and he didn’t hesitate a moment to hand her over to the first person he met who would take his cat of 20 years. Twenty years. As the man handed the cat to me I asked what the cat’s name was. He said he never named it. He just called it cat.
With Bass in tow (she peacefully sat on my lap) I left the vet office to get Bass settled into her new home. Her last home. The obviously only loving home she’d had in 20 years.
My husband wasn’t thrilled about me bringing home yet another cat but he liked Bass almost immediately. He gave her the name Bass because though she couldn’t see she could hear very well. Each time she heard footsteps close by she meowed a loud very wide open mouth quirky meow that reminded my husband of the fake bass plaques that sang when they perceived motion.
I vetted Bass since she’d likely never been and she ate well and played with the other house kitties. She loved to snuggle and purred instantly when you touched her. She was truly a pure joy to have around.
Bass napped a lot and slept so soundly I checked her regularly to be sure she was still breathing. Then one day — 2 years after I’d brought her home — she wasn’t.
I remember the day she left very well. Bass was sleeping on the couch in her soft blanket bed she had made from a pile of baby blankets. Her nest was filled with small stuffed dolls and animals she’d collected and decided were her babies. I heard her quirky meow and thought that was odd since I wasn’t in the same room she was in. Bass only meowed when she heard footsteps close by or someone got very close and spoke to her.
When I stopped what I was doing to check on her to see why she had meowed, Bass was already gone. And I wondered why she’d meowed her quirky meow that one last time when she hadn’t heard footsteps and no one had been talking to her.
For a while I felt guilty for not being there for Bass’ final moments, but I finally realized she’d meowed that one last time because an angel had been very close to her and told her it was time to go home with her. Her last home.
Jackie Deems copyright 2021