Dead Cats

"For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death."  1 Corinthians 15:25-26

We are a three cat family.  We have Mama Cat, Happy, and Mittens.   Mittens should be called Mittens 2.0 because Happy’s brother was the original Mittens, but he met a car that he couldn’t outrun last fall in front of our house.  He’d been dead longer than 24 hours when the kids and I found him.  Twenty-four long, warm hours.  It wasn’t pretty. 

New Mittens is a girl cat and is grey with some peach calico.  She’s a bigger kitten who showed up at the across the street neighbor’s house and she didn’t want to keep her. 

Mama Cat, who has also been called Kitty Waa Waa and Curly by the kids for reasons I don’t understand, has only been a mama once.  She’s older and is kind of cranky.  I’ve lost track of how long we’ve had her, but it’s been a while. 

Oh, and Happy is black and white and is two years old. 

Anyway, three cats…

On Sunday, I was working on getting lunch together and noticed out my kitchen window that I could see a dark, cat-shaped lump in the grass down by the neighbor’s pasture gate.  I kept an eye on the lump while I got lunch together and the lump never moved.  The lump was dark colored, so that made it either Happy or Mama Cat.  I kept watching.  No movement.

When lunch was almost done, I sent the 9YO outside to check and see if he could find all the cats.  Only Mittens was in the garage. 

“Why?” he wanted to know. 

So I told him.

“There is a cat shaped lump down there by the neighbors that hasn’t moved the whole time I’ve been in the kitchen.  I think it might be a dead cat.”

We looked out the window and then he showed his brother.  There was a sense of urgency and they both ran out the door and down the street to check on the dead cat.

My heart constricted.  They weren’t very happy when we found (the first) Mittens.  But I thought maybe this would be better since they were going on their own accord, knowing what to expect, and it wouldn’t be a surprise.

They marched down the middle of the street, Mittens 2.0 following behind. 

I kept an eye on the dead cat.  Still nothing.

But then, just as they passed the halfway point down the road.  The dead cat’s head popped up and Mama Cat ran to meet them. 

It was almost like when the bird came back to life.

I laughed and laughed and so did they.  They patted Mama Cat’s head and came back in the house to tell me she wasn’t dead.  She was only sleeping! 

Thanks be to God for little boys, funny cats, and the promise that our death will only be the beginning of our eternal life in Heaven!