Oliver!
Our cat has turned our house – and hearts – inside out.
This post is inspired by Patty Bee’s wonderful post titled I Tried to Give Our Rescue Dog Back. Luckily I Failed on her Substack Second Drafts.
A week after our beloved tuxedo cat Hemi died, Dr. C called me. I hoped our kind-hearted veterinarian could explain to us why our only cat passed away. I put my phone on speaker mode for my daughter.
But I was surprised by the conversation that occurred.
“This may be too soon, let me know if it’s too soon, but I have a cat that needs a home,” she said. Dr. C has a reputation of rescuing seemingly unadoptable animals.
“I don’t know,” I said. My daughter was elated; she missed cuddling with a cat.
“His name is Oliver,” continued Dr. C. “He’s a sweet six-year-old Himalayan, and his long fur needs to be brushed every day to avoid matting. He loves to be brushed. He is beautiful. His purr is amazing. He has had some medical problems; he almost died due to a urinary blockage and had to have extensive surgeries, but he is fine now, although he has to have a special urinary diet. He has had multiple owners. One guy took him home, but two days later he returned him to me; it just wasn’t a fit for a man, he said. Oliver can’t stay in my house because he’s too afraid of my cats and dogs. He would need to be the only cat in the household.”
I told her I’d think about this high-maintenance cat, knowing my answer would be “no.” Despite my daughter’s eagerness to get a new cat, she was still grieving the loss of our affectionate, loving Hemi. And so was I.
We mulled it over for a week and we figured that since Oliver had no permanent home or takers, we would welcome him into our family.
After he adjusted to our house and the lay of the land, Oliver started his reign of terror. He didn’t seem at all like the cat our veterinarian described. He hated being brushed and would try to bite the hand that brushed him. I had to repeatedly bring him back to the animal hospital for a technician to shave his hair mats caused by a lack of proper brushing.
And he also had a foot fetish. When my daughter walked quickly around the house in her bare feet, he would playfully chase her feet and nip at them. He would often try to trip me or nip at my legs and feet as I walked. We consistently tried to play with him so he could work this aggressive play out, but he didn’t chase or interact with his toys. Instead, he enjoyed watching us toss balls to each other, as well as throwing toys and retrieving them ourselves.
Most cats are good at hiding, but Oliver was great at it. One day, I couldn’t find him anywhere in the house, and I panicked, wondering if he was permanently lost. My hips were sore from laying on floors looking for him under furniture. During one of my frantic moments of looking for him, Dr. C happened to call to see how Oliver was adjusting. I nonchalantly mentioned that at this moment I couldn’t find him, but he was definitely in the house.
“It’s disconcerting, isn’t it?” she offered.
“Yes,” I said calmly, eager to change the subject. “Oliver is kind of naughty,” I said. “He chases and pounces on my daughter’s feet.”
“How about putting him in a time out?” she countered. A time out? How does one give a monster cat a time out?
Dr. C and I were aware of the silence that ensued. Then, “I want this relationship to work out,” she said.
“So do I,” I lied. The truth was, I wanted a divorce from this furry terror and to return him back to the veterinarian.
Finally a grueling month passed, a month with a cat I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t even look directly at him. That was Oliver’s cue that I was a safe person, and I became his human. Oliver started following me around and laying by my feet as I worked. Often he rested half of his body on my feet. He laid on his back often, exposing his belly, showing that he trusted me. He started purring when being brushed and petted. When I call him, he comes running to me.
And that’s when I noticed that there was more to this cat than meets the eye. Slowly, I grew to love him.
My daughter? Not a fan of Oliver. But she can occasionally be found gently picking him up and kissing him – to his utter dismay, as he hates being picked up. But he stays in her arms for a few minutes before wiggling out of her friendly grasp.
Oliver is affectionate, but he’s not a cuddly, snuggly cat like Hemi was. Oliver sleeps on no one’s bed and he is not a lap cat. He loves to be petted, though, and bunts me often, giving me frequent slow blinks, another sign of feline affection. He’d been through so much trauma through much of his life before joining our household – moving from home to home and dealing with abuse years before Dr. C met him – that I understand why he’s got behavior issues.
He still likes to playfully stalk my daughter and me, but six years later, we still have Oliver.
Oliver is the epitome of a scaredy cat – afraid of people he doesn’t know and occasionally panicking when I pull a tissue out of a box. Now, due to age, he has developed arthritis and sometimes walks stiffly. Per Dr. C, I give him a shot every three months to ease arthritic pain and keep him as agile and terrorizing as ever.
I’ve done sketches of Oliver, and I was hoping to finish the oil painting of him, but frankly I haven’t been in the mood to work on it. My daughter told me she’d finish up the painting.
This week, though, I was inspired to watercolor him from a different photo than the one above. It turned out OK – could be better, but acceptable.
Note that his left eye is larger than the right one. It was larger in the reference photo, and his right eye is darker because his face was partly in a shadow.
We and Oliver have adjusted to each other. We have finally discovered how he enjoys playing, so we are able to get his zoomies out most of the time, and this helps him become more docile. He will always have behavior and psychological issues.
He’s not perfect. And goodness knows, neither are we.
In Memoriam
Oh Beth, your post moved me deeply … like a heart doing somersaults, rising and falling in equal measure. What a rich journey you’ve all been on … grief, resistance and unexpected love braided through every moment like mismatched wool that somehow knits a family.
Oliver sounds like a clever cat with a soul full of stories and a generous dash of mischief! Your willingness to meet him where he is … quirks, trauma, foot-chasing and all … feels so beautifully human. I did laugh aloud at his feline foot fetish and the toy-fetching humans, and then felt the somersaulting ache of Hemi’s absence in the quiet spaces between your words.
Your watercolour, your sketches, even your daughter’s offer to finish the oil painting herself … it all speaks of a household learning to love differently. Not perfectly, but honestly.
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful heart and beautiful art. This isn’t just another cat tale, to me it’s a heartfelt testament to resilience, to the messy grace and the unexpected blessing of second, third, fourth chances, and to all the strange ways that love and healing tiptoes in … sometimes on four paws, sometimes with slow blinks.
Most of all, I love how you grew to love! There’s such warmth and wisdom in that. Oliver may not be cuddly, but he’s clearly curled himself into the corner of your heart and that, my dear friend, is its very own kind of magic. What a clever cat indeed! As always, wonderful photos and art too. 🙏❤️🐱
Beth, thank you for sharing the story of Oliver, he’s a lucky cat to be with you and Arielle!