Travels with Ditto

Christmas 2012- Ditto and her Koalas, Snowman and heating pad

Well, I think I have the cat of all cats. Her name is Ditto (for the  two grey streaks that looked like "ditto marks" on her forehead when she was little..look you can see them below). 

Here is Ditto with our Bulldog Buddy in 1992

Ditto's first photo with her Koala Bear Buddy, 1992

She is 21 years old now. The story of how she came to us is well, unbelievable to many but to me, quite simply an answer to prayer. More on that later. Today, at 21, Ditto is showing her age. Like won't we all at 101 years old? Sleeping most of the day. Loving to be loved and petted and held closely. Bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning when we greet her lazing upon her heating padded  recliner...yes she has her own recliner surrounded by the 3 Koala Bears that my Ozzie students gave me back in 1976...she loves her buds and seldom sleeps without them.

Last week she developed this crazy way of walking...her back right leg just hangs there and she trails it along like a second tail. She doesn't seem to be in pain, sooooo...we let her walk and sometimes pick her up and carry her to the next locale cuz...hey, we can help. The vet thinks it's neurological but he also thinks she is too old to address the strange gait. So it remains.

Ditto loving the sunny front window

Ditto is an amazing cat and a perfectly perfect friend for us-- childless but happy baby boomers. Brought to us as an abandoned kitten, she has never really enjoyed being cuddled or held. She doesn't head butt you or rub up against your leg like "typical cats". She has her own style of "loving stuff"-- on her own terms. Example: She makes a threefold turn circling Dave's chair each morning, then jumps into his lap to be brushed and petted for the next 1/2 hour while he reads. This is her "dote on me time" and she insists upon it. Even today, when her back leg seems to have been stolen away from her by time and just hangs there, unhelpful in the walking process, she still limps along circling the chair. Why? To get her loving of course. Her habitual happy behaviors show us one clear thing...she is not ready to say goodbye yet.

Christmas with Ditto about 1994

Ditto has been deaf since birth. She doesn't know or care that she is deaf. It is her life. She is especially sensitive to light and used to chase a scooting flashlight beam all over the place for fun. She would sit at the telephone and when the red "message" button flashed, she pressed it to play the messages--over and over. A deaf cat playing phone messages...pretty funny huh? She has even learned a little "sign language". She has adjusted perfectly. Being so VERY white, She is very unphotogenic! So I have to take photos of her against strong contrasting subject matter...doesn't she look pretty here?

How Ditto came to be a member of our family...

Ditto is the answer to a fervent prayer on my part. The prayer was the result of a cascade of kitty losses that started like this...

Ricky with me outside our home..I was on the way to my first triathlon

Our first cat was a Siamese male (above) who showed up on our fence the day of the 1979 7.6 earthquake in the Bay Area...he seemed lost and needed a home. We took him in and named him Ricky (for the Richter scale). Ricky was just plain sweet and easy. As he aged, he became deaf but still loved to be outdoors. One day he was lolling in the sun in the driveway, half in and half out of the garage. Unaware of her location, Dave closed the automatic garage door on her. He had no idea what he had done. Of course, she couldn't hear the door closing.

I came home from a run to find her there with the garage door on top of her. I screamed and screamed for help to get the garage door open until the neighbor came over from across the street. Ricky was of course lost to us. So traumatic was this death that I remember running down Bernal Avenue calling out her name, tears streaming down my face..."Ricky...Ricky...!". I truly believed like Lazarus, he could come back to me out of the grave we had placed him in, between two large trees on Foothill Road. Devastated. I was simply devastated. We had killed our own cat. I know it was an accident, but I cried for weeks.

Then Came A Cat Named Rosey

I wanted another kitty to love so I went to the shelter and brought home a big fuzzy Persian cat we called "Rosey'. She was so shy that she hid for 4 days. About the time I was getting attached to caring for her and the day she decided not to be afraid of us anymore, I noticed a black kind of mark on her nose. I took her to the vet and they said she had Leukemia. Always fatal. I couldn't bear to watch another cat die so I returned her. Again devastated at yet another loss of hopes and plans for a cat in our lives.

Another Chance For A New Kitty?

That New Year's Eve, Dave and I were taking a late night walk down our street when a frolicking orange and white kitty started to follow us. It dodged in and out of cars and our feet. I thought,,,Maybe this will be our new kitty! Just then, it ran into the street and was hit by a car. The cat careened back toward us and into a garage door. We ran to it but it was moaning and died in front of us. We cried all the way home. I stopped wanting a cat for a long time after this. I just waited, thinking our bad luck would break on its own. I had determined that I would not go out and seek any more cats on my own. I promised myself..."The only way I'm taking a cat is if it comes right to my front door." Then I'll know it is meant for me.

How About A Purr?

A couple catless years passed. Then one day I was running down Second Street when a pudgy cat came right up to me and rolled over on its back, showing it's belly and begging for a hug. It was purring so loud I had to stop and obliged with attention. As I rubbed and petted this unknown soul, I asked, "God is it too much to ask for a purr?" I was reminding God I still wanted a kitty with much purring attached.

Ditto was tiny when she arrived at our front door

Two nights or two weeks later, I can't remember, we got a knock at the door during dinner. Here stood our neighbor and a little boy named Gary with a pillow. They were offering out this pillow upon which sat a tiny white kitten. "Do you know anything about this little kitty?" our neighbor asked. I got a huge smile on my face and answered, "Yes I do. It's MY kitty." We welcomed Ditto into our home that day absolutely assured she was THE ONE. I had also vowed that I would have ONLY an indoor cat. When we discovered she was deaf, it was clear that she MUST live as an indoor cat. All prayers answered. The funny thing? Ditto has the tiniest little purr you've even not heard. You have to touch her throat to FEEL the purr happening. So, in some ways I guess it was too much to ask for a purr, but not too much to ask God to bring a kitty right to my door. I just had to wait until she could be made for me, lost in the park and then found....my kitty.

I have been overwhelmed with gratitude each and every day of Dittos incredibly healthy long life. And now that she is slowing way down, it is the easiest thing in the world to care for her and make any accommodation she might possibly need to live out the rest of her days. 

Ditto has been my gift from heaven. 

I cherish her as a token of God's affection for me...as a very definite answer to a prayer that healed my broken heart and gave me someone to dote over.