I was going through some of my photos today and came across some of my art photos of the cat who adopted us. Here is his story.
We were living in South Carolina. We sometimes kept our garage door open. We had a large bag of cat food in the garage for our cat Bart. Bart was our first beloved cat. I will tell his story sometime also. We noticed that something had nibbled through the cat food bag. I figured it was mice.
We soon discovered that it was an old cat that had figured out where we kept this convenient food source. He was very friendly and mellow although we could see he was neglected and hungry.
From speaking with neighbors I found that he had been making the rounds around the neighborhood eating from outdoor cat bowls and peering in windows and looking for handouts. He had an odd look and one of my neighbors nick-named him Lucifer.
Needless to say, we started feeding him. We realized that his owners lived down the street but were not taking care of him. I already had a cat and he was ill. He would be so jealous if we brought another cat into the house so we sort of let him be our outdoor cat.
It was January and could get cold at night. I had a little Christmas tree on the front porch sitting on a little trunk. I put a little cat bed behind it near our front door and he took to it right away. Our neighbors called him Porch Kitty.
I would crack the door a little and let Bart smell him and check him out. At first Bart would hiss but one day he just sniffed at him and then went back inside. No hissing. Bart was dying and I think he knew that I would need this old decrepid cat to get me through his leaving me.
After Bart died I opened the door and let the outdoor cat now named Silver into the house. I was not sure what he would do. He tentatively walked in. Made a circle around the inside of the house and then walked back out to the front porch.
Eventually he would come in for longer periods of time. It took him awhile to relax enough to sit. The next breakthrough was him laying down inside. It was like he did not know that he was allowed to do this.
He had a nasty flea collar that his previous owner had left on too long. We removed that right away. He was losing hair and I took him to the vet to be checked out. He also had a limp that came and went. We got him on some vitamins and shortly he was looking greatly improved.
He had a very interesting look to him. I figured he was some sort of short haired Persian or a British Shorthair. He was old as the hills. He had a great craggly old half of a meow. He loved being outdoors and would sit under the tree in our yard or on the porch and keep an eye on the neighborhood. All of the neighbors now knew him and loved him.
His previous owners eventually moved away and did not even search him out. I didn't care, he was now my cat.
I was experimenting with vintage SX-10 polaroid cameras and a technique called polapainting. I took a few photos of the cat and new that he had missed his calling as a cat model. He was gorgeous and photographed beautifully.
Alas, when we moved from South Carolina to Arizona we brought Silver with us. He did not do well. He was pretty ill to begin with but the previous vet had not figured this out. Our new vet in Arizona told us he was even older than we thought and sicker. Sadly when he got too ill I made a tortured decision to put him to sleep. I hated the decision but felt it had to be done as he was obviously in pain.
Silver got me through the hard times of losing my beloved cat Bart. He was so special. I don't know how his previous owners could have neglected him so. He was wonderful, Silver my supermodel cat. He was a true gift. I think of him often and am glad that he came into my life.
