Empty Nesting with a Cat
Empty Nesting With a Cat
By Vicki Totten
Jan. 9, 2020
Apparently I have become an Empty Nester. Again. It has been 13 years since my fiercely independent son left for college, and never really returned except for summer stays and later for short vacations with the family. So I have had plenty of years to refashion my life without the responsibility, and joy, of having someone else in the house to look after. That is until Skipper showed up and this flea bitten, lice carrying, one and a half pound starving kitten stole my heart. It happened the moment my husband pulled the scared and hissing tiny kitten from where he had been hiding and placed him in my arms. Rather than continuing to fight, this tiny black and white ball of fur suddenly went limp. As he looked up at me, his body seemed to immediately surrender, somehow knowing that he was finally safe.
Following Skipper’s rescue, he became my constant companion. Since we were still living part-time on our sailboat, he quickly adjusted to boat life and the challenges of staying out of the water. Except, that is, for that one time when he fell in. That’s when we discovered he could swim. All while emitting a piercing cry as he frantically searched for the rope he finally used to claw his way back onto dry land before darting into the boat shivering and looking more like a small rat than a cat. After that horrifying incident he was fitted with a life jacket and learned to be more careful when jumping between boats or onto the boom. He also adjusted to us walking him with a harness and a leash, even if it did look more like he was walking us. Before making Rockport our permanent home, Skipper also traveled with us on our many trips back and forth between Austin and Rockport. He would sleep between us in the truck, sometimes crawling into my lap to view the scenery. He always seemed happiest when we returned to Rockport and eventually would complain loudly whenever we began to leave, sometimes hiding inside the box springs to try and keep us from taking him with us.
It was also during this time that Skipper began to show up in my writing. I had been writing a blog for the on-line newspaper in Rockport that was based on boat life, called “Boating Adventures.” Then fairly soon after we rescued Skipper, he began inserting himself into my writing, resulting in my eventually changing the name of the bi-weekly blog to “Boating Adventures with Skipper the Boat Cat.”
But, as I’ve had to learn over and over again, the one thing you can count on in life is that everything changes. And that is where my current empty nesting comes in.
It seems that Skipper has decided to become an outdoor cat, hanging out with and sometimes fighting with the two feral cats at the coffee shop across the street. All of my efforts to lure him back have so far been unsuccessful. When I tried to lock him in at night he retaliated by tearing the cat door from its hinges. Rare are the nights when he will wake me up in the middle of the night to get me to stroke his neck and rub his ears until his purr becomes so loud he could wake up someone in the next room. Equally as rare is his willingness to join me on the couch when we are watching TV or to follow me around when I go into another room. And forget about letting me put his harness and leash on and going for a walk with me. It’s as if some switch got flipped and he suddenly decided he was done with being a house cat. We have moved his litter box outside, even though he seems to no longer use one – since as an outdoor cat he has lots of choices.
This change in him, however, has been especially hard on me. My friends keep asking me how I’m doing since our move away from Austin, expecting me to express deep sadness and regret. So far, I have felt very little of those things about the move, but have felt almost daily sadness that Skipper no longer needs me, beyond the daily feedings he counts on. Of course the obvious interpretation of those feelings would be that I am redirecting my sadness about the move toward Skipper. It’s certainly possible that my increased neediness to have Skipper need me is a denial about my sadness in leaving my long time home, friends, and family members in Austin. I would hope, however, that if that was the case, that my husband Stan would be the one who would benefit or suffer from my increased neediness.
Either way, it feels as though I am once again an Empty Nester. What gives me solace however, is that my now 31 year old son Ian is at the age where he truly seems to appreciate both his parents. He is not shy about expressing his gratitude to us, and he even admitted recently that he misses our living in Austin more than he thought he would. So, maybe Skipper just needs to experience his independence also, and will one day decide he wants to hang around us again.
In the meantime, I am thinking surely there are some kittens that need a good home.