by Gwen Cooper
HOMER’D HAD A GOOD FIRST DAY. NEVERTHELESS, MY APPREHENSIONS remained. Homer had seemed anxious simply walking from the bathroom to the bedroom. The sound of my hand and my voice had drawn him forward—would that always be what it took to make him feel at ease in his new life? Would his life be the constant struggle against fear and limitations that everybody seemed to think likely? Most people who heard about Homer seemed to take it for granted that his life would be circumscribed by trepidation and disability.
But one of the first things I learned about Homer the following morning was how ecstatic he was merely to wake up. I was surprised to see that he had slept the whole night through curled up on my chest, barely moving at all. I soon found that Homer was eager to sync his schedule with mine—sleeping when I slept, eating when I ate, and playing whenever I was in motion. Whether by nature or necessity, he was the quintessential copycat.
I would also learn that Homer tended to be a remarkably happy little kitten. Just about everything contributed to the surfeit of joy he found in his new world—even things I would have normally classified as “cat-adverse.” The whirring of the garbage disposal, for example, or the apocalyptically loud whine of the vacuum cleaner (sounds that terrified not just Scarlett and Vashti, but every dog or cat I’d ever seen) brought him straight over at a fast waddle. His ears would be fully pricked up, his neck and cone turning from side to side as he ran. Yay! A new sound! What is that new sound? Can I play with or climb onto it?
But nothing thrilled him as much as waking up at the beginning of each day. As soon as I sat up that first morning, he began to purr in a humming, distinctive way. There was a melodic undercurrent to it, like birdsong. He rubbed his face so urgently against my hands that he lost his balance and flipped over onto his back, struggling against the weight of his cone and looking for all the world like an incapacitated beetle. Undeterred, he righted himself with a mighty heave and climbed into my lap to prop his front paws on my chest, rubbing his whole face vehemently against mine. I felt the softness of his kitten fuzz and the prickliness of his stitches on my skin.
This is so great! I’m still here and you’re still here! He was so tiny that a single stroke of my hand sufficed to cover his entire body. When I touched him, he dug minuscule claws into my shoulder and attempted to pull himself up, latching onto my earlobe and suckling at it once again.
“I’m going to assume that means you’re hungry,” I said. “Let’s see if you remember where your food bowl is.”
I sat up and deposited him on the floor next to the bed. He was unprepared for this, apparently, because he tripped over his first step, his cone-encased chin once again hitting the floor. But he bounded up quickly enough and toddled straight for his food bowl, after which he scurried to the litter box.
The discovery that food and litter were exactly where he had left them the night before was another moment of bliss. His singsong purring continued unabated, audible even from where I sat clear across the room.
HOMER’S HAPPINESS, ASTONISHINGLY, seemed to be because of, and not despite, the fact that his world had grown so much larger. Lacking vision, Homer’s universe was only as big as whatever space he was in. It’s true that it had once been far larger than it now was—when he was a stray, it had encompassed all of Miami and the world beyond that—but that universe had been lonely, painful, and incomprehensibly dangerous. The relief from pain and danger had come at a price, and his world had shrunk to the size of his kennel at the vet’s office. But Melissa’s house was an eternity of possibility, an infinity of space and smell and sound.
Homer proved to be so incredibly reluctant to be left alone—and so eager to explore—that by his first afternoon in Melissa’s house, we released him from the confines of my bedroom, although I was careful to ensure that Scarlett and Vashti were never in the same room that he was in at the same time.
The miracle was that, within all this space and possibility, Homer was safe. There were things he could count on here, despite how big everything was. Food and water were available in abundance, and could be found predictably in the same spot every day. In this new world, an unusually loud noise meant opportunity, not danger. He could fall asleep at night knowing that no predator would harm him while he slept, and wake up each morning in the arms of someone who loved him.
To say that he must have regarded these things as miraculous would be assuming too much similarity between a kitten’s mind and a human’s. If anything, I was the one who thought in terms of miracles whenever I contemplated what his life had been—and what it would be still, if not for the quirk of fate that had brought us together. But Homer’s happiness was there, and it was indisputable. I had moments of sheer, unreasoning joy in witnessing it, but at the same time it impressed upon me a sense of responsibility, accompanied as it was by the knowledge that it fell to me to ensure the safety that enabled his joy.
“I will always keep you safe, little boy,” I would murmur, caressing his fur while he slept.
Upon hearing about Homer for the first time, Melissa’s father had asked us whether we planned to get a Seeing Eye dog for our blind cat. He’d meant it as a joke, of course, but the question remained as to how I would teach Homer to get around, giving him as free a rein as possible in this new, bigger world while minimizing any of the perils that world might hold for him.
I had spent the days before bringing Homer to live with us trying to think through what it would take to blind-kitten-proof the house. I bought soft felt caps for the sharp edges of tables and bed frames, invested in childproof locks for cabinets where cleansers and other hazardous materials resided, bought childproof latches for toilet lids (a small, eyeless kitten who accidentally fell in and couldn’t see his way out might drown, I thought), and plugged up crevices around the entertainment center where a blind kitten might wedge himself in or hopelessly entangle himself in wires and extension cords.
It was impossible to anticipate everything, but I ended up being glad I had spent so much time thinking about things beforehand—because Homer was impatient to discover and claim every nook and cranny. Homer solved the Seeing Eye dog problem by utilizing me as his Seeing Eye human—following my footsteps so closely everywhere I walked that, if I happened to stop short, his little nose ran straight into my ankle.
“I feel like Mary,” I said to Melissa. When she looked at me quizzically, I added, “You know … and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.”
At first, I thought Homer trailed me with so much determination because he was afraid to investigate on his own. Patty had warned that Homer was likely to be more timid and less independent than other cats. “But he won’t know that he’s blind,” she’d added. “It’s not like the other cats are going to tell him, Hey, you’re blind!”
It was soon apparent, though, that Homer didn’t follow me so doggedly because he was nervous about exploring on his own. It was simply the most efficient way of learning his way around, of discovering where the nemeses of table legs and umbrella stands were lurking to trip him up. Leaving a pair of discarded shoes or a wet umbrella lying in the middle of the floor went from being an act of carelessness to bordering on animal abuse. I stepped over small things that changed place from day to day—but Homer, who walked in a persistent straight line wherever I had just been, would trip and halt in the confusion of an obstructed path that, only the day before, had been clear. Was this here yesterday? I don’t remember this being here yesterday. I’ll admit I had always tended toward the sloppier side of the neatness spectrum. But living with Homer required the discipline of order, and I soon learned habits of tidiness that would come to define my adult life.
In addition to not knowing he was blind, Homer had also clearly never been informed of his “underachiever” status. He got into absolutely everything—anything I was doing, he had to be a part of. If I was cleaning out a closet, Homer was next to me, digging away at the stacks of old clothes or boxes. If I was making a sandwich, Homer would scuttle up the side of my denim-clad leg (to
this day, there’s nothing he loves climbing so much as a pair of jeans) and propel himself onto the kitchen counter. If I was sitting on the couch, he would scale the side of my body until he reached the top of my head, resting there for as long as I could maintain my posture and hold my head level. Catching sight of our reflection in a darkened window one night, with the cone-wearing Homer curled up atop me, I thought we looked like some sort of futuristic half-human/half-satellite cyborg. Homer frequently fell asleep right in the middle of whatever he was doing, as kittens are wont to do, one paw clutching a pilfered scrap of paper or wrapped around his food bowl, like the lesser characters in Sleeping Beauty who, enchanted along with her, slumbered in the act of threading a needle or salting their soup.
By following and exploring so relentlessly, Homer got to know our home astonishingly quickly. Melissa and I were astounded at how, within only a couple of days, the only time Homer bumped into anything—in the whole house—was when he got into one of what we called his “whirling dervish” modes, where he would hyperactively spin around like the Tasmanian Devil until he’d lost his sense of where he was in space. At such times, the clomp! of the front of his cone connecting with a wall or table leg could be heard echoing through the house.
There was only one limitation placed on Homer’s freedom and happiness in those early days, and that was when it came to his eating habits. Melissa and I learned that some official discipline was in order the first time we prepared a meal for ourselves in Homer’s presence. We had just settled ourselves onto opposite ends of the couch with dishes of food when Homer leapt onto the couch and unceremoniously climbed directly onto my plate, hungrily grabbing whatever tidbits were closest to his mouth.
I was reminded of an early scene in The Miracle Worker when, before Annie Sullivan’s arrival, Helen Keller would walk around the family dinner table and put her hands into everybody’s plates, helping herself to whatever she wanted. This, clearly, was unacceptable behavior, and I decided to nip it in the bud.
I lifted Homer up and placed him on the floor. “No, Homer,” I said, in a tone that left no room for argument.
Homer cocked his head back and forth in a way I would soon become familiar with—it meant that he was trying to figure out from my tone of voice what I wanted from him. He did it a few times before responding with the plaintive, cheeping Eeeeuu that kittens make—the kind that seems to require the entire force of their body to produce. Reaching up the side of the couch with his two front paws, he repeated, indignantly this time: Eeeeuu!
Melissa and I couldn’t help laughing, but we refused to give in on this one point. “I said no!” I told him.
Homer sat for a moment with his face turned up toward us, as if waiting for a sign of leniency. Then, with a small sigh, he prowled away toward his own food in the other room. There was a certain amount of defiance in his step, as if he were consciously keeping his kittenish waddling down to a minimum. Fine, then. I have my own perfectly good food right here …
IT WAS HOMER’S first lesson in discipline, and it was made tougher to reinforce by the indulgence of our inner circle of friends, who came over eagerly to meet him. If there was one thing Homer dearly loved, it was meeting new people. And if there was one thing the people who met Homer loved, it was letting him do whatever he wanted. Suddenly Homer was part of an extended family, what Melissa and I referred to as “the itty bitty kitty committee,” which included innumerable indulgent godparents who were perfectly happy to sneak him bits of tuna or turkey or meatballs from their plates. They also showered him with the toys they’d brought over for him: toys from their own childhoods and toys purchased specifically for cats; toys that hummed, buzzed, rang with attached bells, or were otherwise made enticing by their ability to produce sound. Everybody, myself included, assumed that playthings with bells and whistles—and not the visual stimuli of feathers and doodads—would hold the most appeal for a blind kitten.
Homer had to be introduced to new people in just the right way or else he was apt to be hesitant. With his whiskers trapped in that cone he still wore, it was nearly impossible for him to sense any movement in his close vicinity—so it always took him by surprise when a hand other than my own came to rest on his head or back, seemingly out of nowhere.
We developed an introduction ritual, wherein I would hold the new person’s hand in my own and bring the two of them together under Homer’s nose, so that he could smell my familiar scent mingled with the new one. Once Homer had been properly introduced and knew that the new person was Mommy-approved, he was eager to make friends. Any kind of physical contact was a source of profound joy to Homer, who was so much more tactile than sighted kittens and who loved to burrow, nuzzle, cuddle, rub, and bring as much of his small body into contact with others as he could.
What visitors found most astonishing was Homer’s ability to distinguish among people he knew, and to remember the difference between someone he’d already met and guests who were strangers. “I met him once for five minutes,” a friend remarked when, upon a second visit, Homer headed directly for him and climbed into his lap. “How can he recognize me when he can’t even see me?”
“Well, he can smell you,” I replied. Cats actually tend to recognize each other more by smell than by sight anyway—this ability was simply fine-tuned in Homer.
As fascinating as Homer’s super-keen sense of smell was his ability to hear things that nobody else—not even other cats, or so it seemed—could hear. I remember one of our friends, eager to test the widely held theory that deprivation of one sense led to super-enhancement of the others, waving her hand back and forth silently in the air, about a hundred feet from where Homer lay sleeping in my lap. As soon as her hand began to move, Homer’s head was up, his ears, nose, and neck turning and twitching. This in itself wasn’t so unusual—Homer’s ears and nose were always at work when he was awake, giving him a constantly kinetic air. But the sound of the air currents shifting around the hand that moved silently up and down all the way across the room had reached his ears—with enough force to wake him up. He jumped from my lap immediately, standing on the floor as his head bobbed up and down in perfect time with our friend’s waving hand. He toddled across the living room straight for her, his front paws stretching imploringly up her legs as he arched his head and neck into the air. What’s making that sound? Bring it down here! Laughing, she lowered her hand for Homer to sniff before scratching him affectionately under his chin while he purred in loud contentment.
People were instinctively gentle with Homer. The sense I’d had that first night with him, that it meant something different to be trusted by Homer, was clearly a sense that others had as well.
South Beach at that time was populated by people who had, for the most part, moved there from other places, and who had grown used to being called “misfits” or “freaks” back in their original hometowns. They were artists and writers, costume-loving club kids or cross-dressing performers at the local drag bars. There was a reason why, in our more sardonic moments, we referred to South Beach as “the Island of Misfit Toys.”
Melissa loved collecting strays and misfits, creating a constant salon of sorts in her home. Perhaps it was because Homer was also a “freak” who had been shunned remorselessly by so many others that everybody took to him so quickly.
But I don’t think so.
A friend once asked me why it was that stories about animals and their heroism—a cat that pulls her kittens from a burning building, say, or a dog that walks across fifty miles of Iraqi desert to reunite with the soldier who fed him—are so compelling.
I didn’t have an immediate answer, beyond observing that I also loved those stories. A few days later, though, it occurred to me that we love them because they’re the closest thing we have to material evidence of an objective moral order—or, to put it another way, they’re the closest thing we have to proof of the existence of God. They seem to prove that the things that matter to and move us the most—things like love, courage, loya
lty, altruism—aren’t just ideas we made up from nothing. To see them demonstrated in other animals proves they’re real things, that they exist in the world independently of what humans invent and tell each other in the form of myth or fable.
Homer’s blindness didn’t imbue him with mystical qualities. It didn’t make him more perceptive or a better judge of character than other animals. But he did bring out the best in those around him. Our friends knew that the couple who had originally brought Homer to my vet had insisted he be put to sleep, and that a score of others had refused out of hand to adopt him. This created unequivocal “us” versus “them” camps. To be one of “us,” to understand how remarkable Homer was, to show him greater kindness and accept him despite his differences, was to be a better person than the “them” who’d rejected him. Homer, for his part, was grateful for every bit of the attention he got from the people around him.
Cats are what’s known as solitary hunters, which is science’s way of expressing what most of us can observe—the extent to which cats are more independent than dogs, the way they can fend for themselves and crave “alone time” in ways dogs typically don’t. Dogs in the wild form packs, but cats hunt on their own or form loose social groups that are more about respecting one another’s individual territory than tracking down food cooperatively.
But Homer was always a pack animal—realizing, instinctively, more than any other cat, that his safety depended on numbers. Humans became his pack. I was the pack leader, and anybody I introduced to him was accepted without question. This was a kitten who everyone thought would have been more leery and reluctant to accept others than a typical kitten, but it was in Homer’s nature to be accepting of the people he met, to climb into their laps and purr and rub affectionately against them at the first overture of friendship.
I remember somebody remarking once, as I extracted an alarmed Homer from an afghan he’d become tangled under, how patient I was with him. It struck me because it was the first time anybody had called me patient—probably because I wasn’t a particularly patient person. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be patient. But it was certainly the case that, whenever I was, it was because I was consciously instructing myself to do so (All right … be patient now …), the way that you have to remind yourself to do the things that don’t come naturally.
