We've lived in our home in a blue-collar neighborhood just at two years now. When we first moved in, I quickly put in a vegetable garden, which immediately caught the fascination of the five-year old boy who lived next door.
It wasn't long before we became nodding, waving and chatting acquaintances with his young parents--mostly his mom. She, I'm told, is a very bright young woman who jetted through high school and finished college in a couple of years. She was attractive, bright, and a self-avowed, quite vocal "Christian".
The husband, on the other hand, was darker than a Goth and gloomier than a rainy day in February and spent hours alone on his front porch smoking cigarettes and staring into space. Once, I saw him in his driveway trying to change a flat without the proper tools and since I had a good jack, a top of the line lug wrench, and a portable compressor, I offered them to him. He declined! Seems he wasn't nearly as bright as his wife was said to be. It must have taken him four-hours to do a fifteen minute job!
They also had a cat. A round-faced, moon-eyed little gray-and-white morsel named Percy after the poet. Never mind that she is a she, Percy is who she is.
During the course of time we were told that Percy was "puny" and would shortly die, that the reason she stayed outside was that she didn't like to come in, and she preferred to hide under the porch when it stormed rather than seek refuge inside the house.
My wife was helping a different neighbor's child, whose parents were unemployed, feed and care for her kitty who was a bosom buddy of Percy...so Percy benefited from the food we were putting out for the other kitty. She, Percy, began to expect that we would feed her regularly and would come and "talk" to me while I toiled in the garden.
At some point there was the (probably inevitable) split up and we assisted our neighbor with the purchase of extra cat food. And, (almost as inevitable) a reconciliation requiring the young woman's relocation to West Virginia to live with her husband and his parents (Sound like candidates for Judge Judy or Jerry Springer?).
The woman informed my wife that she was not taking Percy and that unless we took her on she would take her to the pound and have her "put to sleep". But, we were not to worry, Percy was puny and not going to live much longer any way. We declined the offer, but as the movers came and left, a bereft and confused little gray and white kitty was left behind on the porch.
So we took her in. Just too worthy a little kitty to be left out for feral cats and dogs to attack or feed on. She was "puny". She had a horrible case of flea bite dermatitis, was malnourished, and constantly parched for water. We cleaned her up, applied flea control medicine, fed and watered her regularly and today she is a bright, happy and healthy little kitty that pesters me first thing each morning mewing for me to fill the indoor water dish with fresh water....and who rarely ventures outdoors, preferring instead to snooze in a large bowl near her food and water.
As to the "Christians" who abandoned her? We can only hope that their malnourished and parched empathy and compassion will someday be brought to full health as easily as was Percy. I'm taking bets, that these "nominal" Christians face a rocky future and never will fully understand that "as you sow so shall you reap!"
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