Homer's Odyssey, A Blind Cat's Epic Tail
Homer came to us in the eye of a storm. Much like his namesake, a blind man whose poems of great adventure and the tragedies of war survived through time, Homer was a cat that managed to beat the odds.
It was the fall of 1999, Hurricane Floyd was making a b-line to Fire Island, or so they said. I remember biding my time as I watched The Weather Channel tracking a storm that never came. But the telephone call did. Not unlike many calls we may get in any given year: Kittens found in the woodshed. The advice I gave was rote:
"Take them out of the shed," I told her, "the mother will come back and get them."
The mother did take them, save one. When the woman told me the last kitten had "white stuff in its eyes." I knew the mother wasn't going to come back for him. I warned her that the kitten was sick and possibly would not make it through the night. However, the kitten did survive but several weeks later the eyes did not improve.
Instead, he was unceremoniously left in our care. The woman had taken the kitten to a homeopathic veterinarian who instructed her not to use antibiotics. Advice which in any other situation may have been the right advice to give, but when we got the little guy to our own vet, we were told the untreated eye-infection had burned out his vision forever.
I remember standing in the street scolding the woman. Telling her to never take an animal to a crystal-toting quack again. I was angry. Not so much at the woman, but the fact that I knew that I was stuck with the animal and not one bit happy about that.
My husband John swore to me that keeping the kitten was only a temporary thing. At the time we were only three months married, but I saw no less then seven "temporary things" sitting on the kitchen table looking at me. How was this skinny, charcoal-gray creature with Little Orphan Annie eyes ever going to make it here? I knew that Max, the alpha-male at the time could be a bully. I feared he would never get a fair chance at the food dish.
"He will never jump in high places or give you the grief the other cats gave you." I told my mother on the telephone as I tried to convince her to take him. She did not seem impressed. While I hopelessly tried to sell her the idea, he jumped on my knee. He rolled on his back and fell asleep with an "I have a home" smile on his face.
That same day we placed on him the ground, and he postured to the other cats with an arched back and a little "don't mess with me" dance. He then proceeded to do his business in the litter box. Had no problem figuring that one out. We both cheered as if he hit a grand slam. We named him Homer.
A spayed female named Black and White along with her adult son, Sonny, had followed me home some three months earlier. She took it upon herself to start caring for Homer. However, we soon figured out Black and White had ulterior motives for taking him under her wing in the first place. At about three years of age, Black and White had basically walked in our house one day and decided to live there. The situation meant that she did not have high social-status, it was lower than some cats half her age. Having a kitten, was a shortcut up the totem pole and she knew it. Once she got what she wanted, she became indifferent about Homer. However, Black and White's orange biological son, Sonny, seemed pleased to have a younger sibling, and it was not uncommon to see the neutered male Sonny, nursing Homer.
Homer continued to live a charmed life with us. Six-months earlier I had told my mother he would never desire to jump in high places. Now here he was patrolling the roof. John kept the ladder in a stationary position against the house where Homer could find it.
When Homer was about a year old, he had a girlfriend. Yes, neutered cats do still have romantic lives. Sonny's mate was a large shiny black female about Homer's age named Pilgrim. Homer's was an elder cat named Nuisance, 13 years his senior. Homer and Nuisance would sit together shoulder to shoulder for long periods of time. We nicknamed them Harold and Maude.
Still Homer never forgot that he was once an abandoned kitten, and frequently played with and groomed the fondling kittens passing through our place before they got placed in homes. Homer had won over our neighbors with his good nature, and had something of a super-star status on Ocean Road.
Homer never would be classically handsome. His underdeveloped eyes gave him a slightly misshapen head. His build remained thin and gangly, although visits to the vet indicated that he weighed more than he appeared. His fur was also strange, with a dark oily topcoat and a white downy undercoat. Yet he walked with noble bearing, so when passers-by looked at him, they would remark what an attractive cat he was. The blindness issue sometimes didn't even come up in conversation. We didn't see it anymore.
Homer's princely existence went on this way for a number of years when Duke, the current alpha-male of the household died suddenly when he was struck by a golf-cart in 2004. There was a brief mourning period, but it did not take long before two males including Sonny started vying for the position of alpha-male.
I had witnessed several alpha contests in the years I had lived with John. So had Homer. There were displays of strength by the males and much posturing that could go on for weeks, but ultimately it was the females who had final say in selecting a new alpha-male. This particular contest had been at a stalemate longer then it should have, and one day I saw Homer sitting by the sidelines with a "this is ridiculous" expression on his face. He officially threw his hat in the ring by sitting in a wagon surrounded by the latest batch of kittens he had won over.
Suddenly, the two other males were desperate to get in the company of these kittens to display that they too had a gentle and nurturing side, but it was too late. The girls had made their decision. Homer, the cat that I thought would never make it here, was now five years old and head of the pride.
As happy as I was for Homer, I could see that Sonny was devastated. Sonny had loyally served under Duke as beta-male for years. He had earned the right to alpha. But Homer had usurped him. I remember Black and White along with Pilgrim sitting by Sonny. It was if they were trying to tell them they loved him anyway. But it did not work. Within weeks Sonny quietly took ill and died.
Black and White had always been a selfish cat, who pretty much only thought about herself, but when Sonny was gone she mourned. About a month later Pilgrim disappeared and was never seen by us again.
As turbulent as Homer taking reign had been, Homer was a good leader. He ruled with a kind and gentle touch, and had the other cats respect without question. Still, Homer took his position seriously and was never the carefree cat he had been. At six years old, Homer was starting to look much older. He already had arthritis, and he got cold very easily. It was not unusual for him to roll a subservient male on their back and sleep in their bodies for warmth.
When Homer died, it was a beautiful spring morning. He had a heart attack; John and I did not expect him to go that day. But it seemed the other cats knew something we did not. Over the course of the night, they had assembled around him in a great circle as if they were wishing their king well on his next journey. It's more then two years since Homer has been gone. Some kittens he once cared for now live with us as adults and continue his tradition to nurture any new kittens passing through. I suppose through them Homer still lives.
This article was originally printed in THE FIRE ISLAND NEWS, July 13, 2007.