Becky Holland
ELLAVILLE — There is an old quote that is not credited to a specific person that says, “Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.”
Dolores Phillips can attest to the truth in that quote.
Only, she would change the people for pets and the footprints to paw prints.
On Monday, Phillips called the Times-Recorder and said, “I think I have an usual story for you.”
According to Phillips, her cat Sassy had given birth to a litter of kittens over the weekend, and one of them was a little, well, “weird. My daughter had been at the house when Sassy gave birth and she called me on her cell phone to tell me and she told me one of them was weird.”
Further explaining, Phillips said, “It has four legs and a tail and looked normal, but it has two faces.”
According to research, one in a million cats can be born with two faces. Local veterinarian, Sam Harper, was contacted about the cat, and he said that it was just some sort of deformity, and that the cat’s mouths had two cleft palettes, and that it was a female.
Phillips said that Harper gave her several options, including surgery, tests, putting the animal to sleep or trying to keep it alive. She chose the latter, taking home a syringe and the kitten, who she named Lucky.
Mid-afternoon on Tuesday, Phillips called the Times-Recorder, audibly upset. “I have some sad news, Lucky has died,” she said.
According to Phillips, “I have been feeding her, holding her, and she was the sweetest thing ... but the milk, when I would try to put it in one of her mouths, it would just bubble right back up.”
Taking a pause, sadness in her voice, Phillips continued, “I checked on her periodically, and I thought one time she had stopped breathing, but she hadn’t, and then I went back, and she was gone.”
Silence filled the air on the phone line. “I am almost sorry that I even shared the story ... but I just thought it might be something that might make others feel good ... I know I had her for a short time, but I had already become attached to her ... ”
She continued, “You know what I mean, when you are an animal lover, it is like it doesn’t matter how long you have them, or how short of a time you have them, you still can get very close to them.”
Phillips was going to take Lucky to a local vet for an autopsy so the doctor could see exactly what made the cat have the deformity. “At least, if someone else ever encounters a situation like this, then, maybe this can help them.”
Until then, Phillips has Lucky’s brothers and sisters to look after.
Linda Barnes, a poet, wrote a tribute to a lost cat, “They will not go quietly, the cats who've shared our lives. In gentle ways they let us know their spirit still survives. Old habits still make us think we hear a meow at the door.
“Or step back when we drop a tasty morsel on the floor. Our feet still go around the place the food dish used to be, and, sometimes, coming home at night, we miss them terribly. And although time may bring new friends and a new food dish to fill, that one place in our hearts belongs to them . . . and always will.”
Phillips said, “I will never be the same.”
