Vision

Vision is my girl.

Here is how she came to be with me:

Vision was one of my river cats I cared for near Mater Engineering. They lived and for the most part died down there. Many died in the restoration project the city undertook. I got my start trapping cats with the river cats and a trap bought for me by a couple who then operated a cat fixing nonprofit in town here. They had to leave town because of Scott's allergies, but we still keep in touch at Christmas. What they did, for the cats of this area, when they purchased me that live trap they could not have imagined in their wildest dreams.

Vision was one of thirty or more cats I trapped for fixing along the river, before I even had a car. I often carried the trapped cats the half mile or so back to the Julian Hotel where I lived for three years. Then in the morning I'd hitch a ride out to Eastgate Vet Clinic where I maintained a wild cat fund. The fund was fed by donations from bus drivers, old people and very poor people. When I had enough in the fund to get another cat fixed, I would trap another cat.

Vision was of the Captain Courageous bloodline. She is Captain Courageous' granddaughter and daughter of Mukluk, who I had euthanized when she contracted leukemia later in her life. She had Vision before contracting leukemia. Vision has been tested twice. Both Captain Courageous and her sister Scratch are still living.

Captain Courageous still lives along the river and is the only river cat left alive, after Mystery's death last week. The man who has fed her since she was a kitten has promised to take her off the river and into his home for seven years and has never done so because he's lazy and doesn't do anything for anybody. That little girl deserves better.

Scratch lives with a former city bus driver as she has for seven or more years and is very very happy. Half-n-Half, the only alley cat (cats living between Mater Engineering and Allan Bro's warehouse) that I could save, also lives with that bus driver.

Her brothers Muddy and Stripe died horribly in the river project. I loved them so. To even think of their deaths now, makes me sad. I can't go down to the river and enjoy the new park because the park project murdered my river cat family.

I retrapped Vision in the midst of the project, knowing she would not survive it. She would play on their machines at night, sit boldly on their bulldozer seats. The bulldozers and backo's were situated on the former bike path right by Mater Engineering. The river cats were born right there, in the stones and bushes the city was tearing to pieces.

I took her after retrapping her to the duplex where I lived, but right at this time, I was losing housing there, because wall heaters fell off the walls, the roof leaked, a water logged shed door collapsed and just barely missed killing me, those sorts of things.

Someone who lived behind me said his sister did cat rescue and lived in St. Helens. She promised to hold Vision for me on her porch in a 12 foot by 12 foot walk in cage. Her brother took Vision up.

I was dismayed to learn, when I went up to get Vision, that this woman was a collector. She lived in the backwoods behind St. Helens. For another year, I went up once or twice each month and became her slave, working for her, scooping up poop for hours, getting filthy, hoping to find Vision on her fenced contained acre of property. She did not hold Vision in a cage awaiting me, but rather released her into a disgusting filthy feral containment area. There was no place in that area, nor on her property one could step without stepping into dog or worm infested cat poop.

It was so sad for the animals and she couldn't see this was wrong. She had ten or twelve big dogs and fifty or more cats. I thought I could fix her, make her see it was wrong to hold that many animals in filth, get her to stop taking in more and to start cleaning. Her trailer was filthy also with hair and poop and pee. And always I was trying to find Vision. I could not change her. And so, I made plans to turn her in to a cruelty investigator.

But word got out. The man told someone he knew in Portland who was a blabbermouth. The St. Helens woman got the warning call while I was there, on her property. She came out of her trailer screaming at me to get off her property now. At that moment, I caught sight of Vision out of the corner of my eye. I was able to net her and be off the property in two minutes time.

I was happy to be leaving with Vision. But driving away and leaving those animals to their fate with her, I could only sob watching them disappear from any hope in my rearview mirror.

Vision was safe with me, although it had taken me a year. I do not believe in abandoning my friends. I do not understand those who do.