Gramma Love
My Gram lived with us when I was growing up. She was a simple soul, not too interested in us one way or the other, a bit of a tough old bird. She'd come to us divorced, after my Gramp ran off with another woman, with whom it turned out he'd fathered eight more kids to add to the six he'd had with my Gram. Anyway, every summer she went down the line to stay at our family farm, which wasn't really a farm, just a house in the middle of nowhere on a bluff surrounded by sandy soil. The Scottish Presbyterian version of a cottage, I guess. One summer, Cindy, a lovely slim calico cat showed up at the farm. My Grandmother took a shine to her, which surprised us - even though she'd always been the one to talk to our dog, Lucky - whose company she clearly preferred to ours. Cindy made it more fun to visit the farm (we never thought of it as visiting our Gram, just the farm ) and even more fun when she had a litter of kittens. Oh god, Cindy's kittens made the farm a destination alright, bearing in mind there was no water for miles around and nothing much to do except wander around, the monotony of the day broken up by hot dry trips to the neighbouring farm half a mile away for drinking water, which we'd carry home in big glass jugs to last my Gram all week 'til we visited the farm the next weekend. Anyway, in minutes we had names for the kittens, Blackie, Whitey, Grey Guy, Tom and Edith (the last two were the names of family friends - a couple who came every Sunday for dinner. We thought it hilarious - obvious names for three of the kittens, although my brother wanted to switch the colour names so they made no sense - and Tom and Edith). One week we showed up at the farm and Blackie was missing. We looked all over for him, all weekend, but couldn't find him. Now, the kittens had been relocated from the actual farmhouse to the back kitchen - a place that was altogether too much like a shed with easy access by raccoons, skunks, snakes for our liking. We asked our Gram if the kittens could be relocated back to the house. But not surprisingly, she said, "No. Those kittens are nothing but a nuisance. They can stay in the back kitchen." And when I say "not surprisingly" it's because I doubt there was a single question we'd ever asked my Gram that wasn't answered "No." Alas, we didn't find Blackie and it was Sunday, time to go back home to the city. We pleaded with my Gram to keep an eye on the kittens, to check in on them and to make sure Cindy checked in on them too. She said something a little ominous sounding to that - "Funny. Cindy doesn't seem to care much for those kittens." Then, "Either." My blood ran a little cold. But my Mom was already backing down the long driveway to the gravel road. The next week, Whitey and Grey Guy were missing. By that time, too, the kittens had been relocated from the back kitchen, to the broken down shed quite a distance from the house. "Gram!" we pleaded. "Let the kittens live in the farmhouse!" But all she offered up after "No" was, "I think that owl is getting your kittens. Owls like rodents." We couldn't believe it. Our Gram was just letting those kittens die. And no amount of pleading would get her to budge on moving them to the house. To our surprise, too, our Mom wasn't taking our side. "But Mom, Gram's just letting those kittens die!" "Heavens, the owl's probably getting them. She's not *letting* them die." We stared at her aghast. "That's the same thing!" "No. It isn't. Now leave your Gram alone." Well, needless to say, Edith and Tom were nowhere to be found the next weekend and CIndy, who we noticed hadn't been around much since she had her kittens, was suddenly not just back, but back and living in the house with our Gram. She'd never been allowed in the house before and now, there she was - sleeping on the settee. My Gram had even taken to asking my Mom to bring down some catfood for Cindy - who up until her kittens disappeared, had been considered a mouser. Eventually, fall came and the early July memory of the kittens had faded and Gramn came back to live with us in the city. We thought she'd want to bring CIndy with her, and were hoping my Mom would say she could, but it turned out she didn't want to bring Cindy to the city - she said Cindy was a barn cat, and besides, Lucky was too jealous a dog to put up with a cat. So she sent Cindy down the road to the farm where we got our water to be a barn cat again and that was the last we ever saw of her.
