The dictionary tells us that the word "dubious" means "questionable or suspect as to true nature or quality". My best friend and co-worker joked that this name suited him much better. At times she also referred to him simply as "Mr. Don't Belong".
I suppose she may have been right in some ways, but I didn't care. There was something I found to be very appealing and very special about this little guy.
Gem's story, as near as I can tell, began in early 1991 and I would later designate February 1, 1991 as his official "birthday" since we do celebrate all birthdays in my house. I brought Gem into my home to live with us in January of 1998. In the beginning, Gem's biggest problem was that he didn't trust that I could love him, and didn't understand that I would always take care of him. After bringing him home from the shelter where I worked, I showed him lots of love, but he still held back. He wanted to be loved, but he wasn't able to trust me for a long time. We got along great as long as I didn't walk behind him, or enter the room when he was using the litter box. If I was in that room and he needed to relieve himself, he would cry at the door as if asking me to please leave, and of course I would.
I don't know about Gem's earliest years firsthand, but I'll tell you what I do know. I was not working at the shelter yet when he was rescued. From what I heard, there was a nurse living in North Hollywood who had a bunch of feral cats in her apartment along with a boyfriend that hated cats. The story is that he used them for punting practice. The couple decided to move and didn't take the cats and they made no provisions for the animals either.
The word was that they left some in the apartment without food or water, and others were just kicked out into the alley.
The employees of the shelter where I worked then, heard of their plight and went to help. Most of the cats were rescued but not very many lived. They were all sickly and starving.
(thumbnail photo - click to enlarge)
When I began working at the shelter, Gem had already been living there for about 4 years. It would be about 3 more years until I would decide to bring him home and make him part of my "family". I can't really tell you why I chose him instead of one the "friendlies". It was something about those eyes that reflected the deepest sadness that I've ever seen. And that pitiful cry of his.....he always responded to me when I spoke and I thought we had formed a relationship.
So I managed to grab him by surprise one day and shove him into a nearby open cat carrier. He screamed like I was trying to kill him and continued all the way home and into the house. For the first two weeks he lived under my bed, hissing at me when I tried to communicate with him. I thought then that it was a mistake. He didn't belong in a home, he was too freaky and unable to relate to humans. He preferred to live in the company of other cats. I would awaken in the middle of the night and find him up on the chest of drawers just staring at me. He would run as soon as I made eye contact.
After a couple weeks went by, he began to venture out from under the bed and quickly attached himself to my other cats. He still wanted nothing much to do with me. Soon he started to play like a youngster and chase his new "brothers", something I'd never seen him do at the shelter. I thought then that no matter what he thought of me, whether or not he ever responded, I was grateful that I could give him the happiness he couldn't have known otherwise. He was free to bath in the sun of my comfy bed, or do whatever else he wanted.
Gradually he began to allow me to approach him, and eventually I could give him a little kiss on his back. I worked my way up his little body and months later I could give him a nice big kiss on the forehead without so much as a flinch from him. He slept every night on the pillow next to me and he had to have the pillow a certain way. He would cry that pitiful little cry of his and wait for me to fluff it just the right way, then he would lay down and go to sleep like the rest of us. He was part of the family now. I loved him so much, perhaps more than the others because of how far he'd come since the early days. Each behavioral breakthrough would draw him closer to my heart.
I still couldn't pick him up very easily, and wouldn't be able to until closer to the end of his life, but he would let me cut a few of his nails. I could do two or three at a time now before he would scream and run away. He got to know and respond to his name very well, coming to me everytime I called, and coming to bed when I told him "Come on Gem, it's time to go to bed now". He ran like a little pony. I called him Pony Boy sometimes. He had more nicknames than any of my other cats.
Not a day went by that I didn't reaffirm how special he was to me, and that I chose him above all those other kitties at the shelter. I knew that some day he'd believe me, relax, and just let me love him.
It would be around mid March of 2001 that I would notice a swelling on the side of Gem's neck as he jumped up onto the bed. And it would be then that cancer would begin it's ravage on my little boy's body, taking his life in just two short months. I'll never forget just how much he meant to me.
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Gem's Story |
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Rescued
Cat
Author: Arlene Pace
Once
I was a lonely cat,
just looking for a home.
I had no place to go,
no one to call my own.
I wandered up and down the streets,
in rain in heat and snow.
I ate what ever I could find,
I was always on the go.
My skin would itch, my feet were sore,
my body ached with pain.
And no one stopped to give a pat,
or gently say my name.
I never saw a loving glance,
I was always on the run.
For people thought that hurting me
was really lots of fun.
Then one day I heard a voice
so gentle, kind and sweet,
And arms so soft reached down to me
and took me off my feet.
"No one again will hurt you,"
was whispered in my ear.
"You'll have a home to call your own
where you will know no fear."
"You will be dry, you will be warm,
you'll have enough to eat,"
"and rest assured that when you sleep,
your dreams will all be sweet."
I was afraid I must admit,
I've lived so long in fear.
I can't remember when I let
a human come so near.
And as she tended to my wounds,
and bathed and brushed my fur.
She told me about the rescue group
and what it meant to her.
She said, "We are a circle,
a line that never ends."
"And in the center there is you
protected by new friends."
"And all around you are
the ones that check the pounds,
and those that share their home
after you've been found."
"And all the other folk
are searching near and far."
"To find the perfect home for you,
where you can be a star."
She said, "There is a family,
that's waiting patiently,
and pretty soon we'll find them,
just you wait and see."
"And then they'll join our circle
they'll help to make it grow,
so there'll be room for more like you,
who have no place to go."
I waited very patiently,
the days they came and went.
Today's the day I thought,
my family will be sent.
Then just when I began to think
it wasn't meant to be,
there were people standing there
just gazing down at me.
I knew them in a heart beat,
I could tell they felt it too.
They said, "We have been waiting
for a special cat like you."
Now every night I say a prayer
to all the gods that be.
"Thank you for the life I live
and all you've given me.
But most of all protect the cats
in the pound and on the street.
And send a Rescue Person
to lift them off their feet."
