"The Furry Posse's Matriarch"

As a writer/editor and English tutor, I must spend many hours a day at my computer. On the occasions that I leave my home office and take my laptop to the living room, I am followed by my posse. My posse is what I call the menagerie of kitties I have rescued from absolute certain death. Each one has a horrifying story of their early beginnings, but all have turned out to be quirky, unique personalities that just seem to make my household dynamic that much more enjoyable.

Even though I have had cats in my life in some form or another since birth, I assure you that I didn't start out wanting eight cats. Having eight indoor cats is similar to having twin toddlers who cannot talk clearly yet, and all they ever want is to eat, sleep, and make messes.

Leia is my oldest kitty and the focus of my story. I call Leia the matriarch, because she keeps everybody else in line, even though she is terrified of almost every sound she ever hears no matter how faint or loud, common or new; she freaks out and hides. Her fear of sounds comes from her horrifying beginning.

I was still teaching in a classroom setting six years ago, and I was driving home on my daily commute which takes me through a very congested and dangerous overpass for a major highway. That is where I saw the SUV in front of me screech to a halt as a white blur of fur ran under the SUV. The woman in the SUV parked and got out frantically looking for whatever ran under her car. I rolled down my window and yelled for the woman to look under the right back wheels of her SUV. She crawled under her SUV in the middle of this very congested and busy overpass while I sat parked with my hazard lights flashing to warn any of the cars that were stacking up behind me. When she came out from under her SUV, she had a tiny terrified ball of fur in her arms. I yelled out the window again, "I'll take it, I'll take it!" And she ran the ball of fur to my window and ran back to her car. It all happened in no more than a minute of time, but it is frozen in my mind as if it were a full length movie.

At this point, the woman started to drive away, and I had to continue driving as well, but I also had no opportunity to even look at the kitten I now had in my arms. I tucked the kitten into my jacket, zipped it up, and continued to drive.

Leia was shaking so badly and curled up in a ball so tightly I couldn't get her to relax the entire twenty minute ride home. I talked to her with a warm calming voice to reassure her that she was going to be okay. She just trembled in my jacket.

When I got home and inspected her, this approximately 6-week-old, black and white, weak, and thin kitten was a bundle of raw nerves. I named her Princess Leia, because of her perfect black ear fur on her white head that looked so much like the famous Princess Leia, from Star Wars, bun hairdo.

Quickly I discovered that she had serious digestive issues that made her first two weeks with me a touch and go situation if she would even survive. After medicine, a special diet, snuggles, and lots of head scratches, she was out of the woods and coming into her own personality. She has been easily startled by sounds ever since. She is very loving and affectionate to two people: my dad and me. She is afraid of every other human being on the planet. I cannot even imagine what her first few weeks of life must have been like in that terrifyingly busy overpass and intersection. Those memories have really cemented in her mind that startling sounds equals danger.

She has become the matriarch of the furry posse by default, really. She is the oldest of the posse and therefore has seniority, and she knows it. Even though she runs and hides when people come to my door, she is not afraid to run to any cat-related disturbance in and outside of the house. If there are wild kitties fighting outside (which happens in my rural area), she bolts to the window or door closest to the sound in a display of defiant-mama-cat-protective-bravada, her fur all bushed up and ready to take the situation in hand. Everyone else, the seven other kitties, just run and hide from these kinds of incidents.

As her sixth "Gotcha Day" approaches, I have been reflecting on how standoffish she may seem to everyone who isn't in the know about her beginnings, but how truly special she is to me. She is chonky and loves back scratches more than anything. She rolls on the floor and coos at me while I vigorously scratch down her neck and back. Then if she hears anything out of the ordinary, or ordinary for that matter, she will bolt away and hide. She has to know that she is safe in our home, but she still panics as if a car is going to mow her down at any second. Leia reminds me that the traumas and scars we carry in life can debilitate us to the peace and joys around us if we cannot learn to cope and live in our safe spaces.