Barbara Presnell: Come, thou long-expected Harry
Harry the cat took off on Thanksgiving, after the big dinner, after drinks around the outside fire. He saw his chance before midnight when the brother-in-law stepped out the patio door for firewood. Those who were still awake went outside and searched beneath bushes, calling. Twice in the night the brother- in-law got up to look for Harry, but the cat was nowhere to be found.
Who could blame Harry? His quality of life had greatly diminished since my son and his wife rescued him from the shelter so many years ago. He had lived a charmed kittenhood in Florida for his first five years. Then he moved to Manhattan and then a Brooklyn apartment where he could perch by the window and eyeball pigeons, his rear end wagging, ready to pounce but for the clear though impenetrable panes.
Then the baby came and then the move to the Connecticut suburbs. Quickly the annoying baby became a toddler who added distress by chasing Harry and yanking his tail as though it were something to be played with. Then there was that incident when a nervous Harry took the skin off a housecleaner, and Harry was in trouble again. The last straw for Harry must have been this flood of Thanksgiving guests who took up spaces on his couch, shooed him off the kitchen counter where the luscious scent of things like turkey and collard greens invited him, and constantly told Harry to scram.
That night by the fire, all Harry wanted was to curl up with someone, but what he got was a scolding and warnings to stay off the furniture.
“I don’t need this,” I can hear him hissing. “Someone else will love me.” Or maybe it wasn’t a planned escape at all. Perhaps as he was pondering the possibility of a new life, he took one false step and tumbled down the hill behind the house, and then, disoriented, he did not know where he was. Whatever his intention, whether planned or unplanned, Harry was gone.
The morning after Harry’s leaving, optimism mixed with pessimism. “He’s out there,” I insisted. We searched the patio, the yard. “Harry! Harry!” we called to the wet morning. Hope was the flickering Christmas tree in the corner that had no decorations.
“There are predators in this neighborhood,” we were told more than once. “A coyote. Hawks.” “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” neighbors said, when we told them Harry’s age and lack of experience in the wild.
Still, I’d owned too many cats in my life who wandered for two weeks or two months, only to finally come dragging back, happy to be home. I wanted to believe Harry was living in the pages of his own children’s adventure book. “He’ll be back,” I said to convince myself as well as encourage the others.
“Cats always come back.”
My husband Bill and I distributed 60 fliers to mailboxes in the neighborhood, describing our ginger- haired Harry, his blue and white striped collar with the fish id tag and jingle bell. Our daughter-in-law included elegant photographs and a note that said, “We miss him desperately.”
Suddenly the annoying Harry had become the gift we wanted most this Christmas season. The house was too quiet without his nightly “merowls.” We left food on the steps, and everyone, passing windows, kept their eyes peeled behind bushes and in the yard for the wandering Harry. Even our neighbors checked their sheds and looked underneath their houses.
That Sunday everywhere, churchgoers lit the first advent candle of Hope and sang, “Come, thou long- expected Jesus.” Outside on the tree in the yard next door, lights twinkled. In town, the community Christmas tree was lifted onto the crane over the water. People and radio stations from North Carolina to Connecticut, began the season of familiar carols. Everyone was waiting.
Hope is its own brand of healing, and it was working on me as I cooked, cleaned, washed loads of sheets and towels, grocery-shopped, and played game after game of “How he get down?” with my grandson who pretends better than anybody I know. Over and over, we read “When Santa Was a Baby,” “The Night Before Christmas,” “Little Blue Truck’s Christmas,” and, my favorite, “Night-Night, North Carolina.”
Every now and then, the two-year-old boy-cat-torturer would lift his head and say “Where’s Hawwy?” On the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, wind was fierce, rain pelted down in torrents, and the daytime temperature stayed below 40 degrees. That night, the wind chill dropped to the low 20s. We felt helpless. I didn’t say it out loud, but even my optimistic, “Cats always come home,” was beginning to be replaced with doubts.
Then Thursday evening, a message arrived: “I think your cat was on my deck last night.” The caller’s name was Beverly, and her description fit Harry, even to the blue and white striped collar. If this was really our Harry, he was a quarter of a mile from home, and he’d crossed a major thoroughfare. It seemed impossible.
Friday night after dinner, Beverly called again. “He’s here now! Come quickly.” Seconds later, we pulled into her driveway. She waved us into her kitchen where she’d coaxed the frail visitor in off the deck.
“It’s him!” I called to the others. A frightened, disoriented Harry scooted around the kitchen island. My son scooped him up and placed him in his soft carrier.
I clasped my hands to my face. Tears spilled down my cheeks, just as they spilled down Beverly’s. I threw my arms around this stranger and said, “Thank you, thank you. It’s a miracle!” She hugged me back, hard. “This has made my Christmas,” she said. “I am so happy.” One after another, my son hugged her and my husband hugged her.
And just like that, Harry came home. Hungry, scared, his old bones showing, Harry was home. That night he ate and ate the salmon dished out for him. He curled around an old sweatshirt on the basement couch. All the next day, he slept, sneezing occasionally, until finally, late that evening, he got up, stretched, and for the first time, his eyes said, “I am glad to be back.” Otherwise, he didn’t say a word.
He didn’t need to.
“Hawwy’s home,” said the two-year-old, reaching for the cat’s tail.
Harry is home. Harry is loved. I am too, in this house with these people I call my family, helping, holding, loving, being.
If the spirit of Christmas can be found in one aging ginger cat—and I believe it can—it exists in full in
Harry and in the dreams of all of us who long to be home—whatever that means—for the holidays.
