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Love for our children will compel many of us mothers to do things that we never dreamed of doing when we were younger. How much time did you spend considering the possibility of cleaning up after a child who just lost his lunch in the family car? Did it ever occur to you that you’d someday pick up a smashed flower pot, broken African violet, and mud glops from your carpet? And don’t forget the little head it fell upon, now muddy, bloody, and cruddy. Have you ever climbed a tree to rescue a doll for a distraught daughter, later to wonder, “How did that doll get in the tree?” The tears of a child can tear at our hearts and sometimes render our brains incapable of making a logical decision.

Our young coal-black cat was seen limping across the yard last spring. Upon inspection we discovered his hind leg was badly injured. A gaping hole revealed two broken bones, one of which was protruding from the nasty wound. The girls cried while I poured hydrogen peroxide over the mess and made a soft bed for him in the garage. As I considered the situation, it ate at my heart. It was easy to reason that a barn cat, no matter how friendly, is hardly worth taking to the vet and spending large amounts of money to fix. The logical thing to do was to put him out of his misery, but he was the girls’ pet and they adored him. I chose bathroom surgery.

There was a large surgical crew in attendance that day, gathered around the table. One daughter held the victim still while another cut strips of first aid tape. Not wanting to miss out on the action, two more hovered over the site exclaiming, “gross” and “yuck” at appropriate times. Apprehensively, I manipulated the bones. Pitifully, he cried in pain. Gladly, we gave up. More peroxide was applied and using two plastic fork handles as splints, we wrapped his limb in gauze. The next two days he lounged comfortably in the garage when he wasn’t working on removing the dressing.

One rainy afternoon I started the truck for a quick trip to town to run errands. A strange thunk came from the engine so I promptly turned it off. Nothing under the hood appeared amiss as my mind rationalized that the radio was on, the fasten-your-seat-belt alarm was sounding, and I was fiddling with the seat while turning the key. I tried again. This time there was a dull thud, thud, thud. Once again the ignition was turned off and the hood raised. Not being a mechanic and too short to see much under the hood anyway, I called upon my tall but non-mechanical son for assistance.

It wasn’t long before he turned pale and backed away from the truck. He obviously had found the problem. A black tail was dangling limply between two fan blades behind the radiator.

I fetched a step stool knowing that my softhearted, weak-stomached kid was going to be of little use from that point on. The cat had taken shelter from the rain between the radiator and the fan. The only way to extricate him was to reach down between the dirty blades and work him upward until I could maneuver him out. It took quite awhile to get a good grip on him but finally his limp body, wedged at the bottom of the fan, was dislodged. He growled. The poor fellow was alive! With as much gentleness as possible and my arms stretched down through the fan, I lifted him up, trying not to catch his previously broken leg on car parts. Finally his head appeared between the blades and soon the rest of him followed. It was like childbirth! Limp and bleeding, he lay in my arms.

After several heart wrenching moments, the girls mustered stiff upper lips and set their minds to nursing their poor cat, who had gone through so much in two short weeks, back to some level of health. There wasn’t much we could do to patch him up so I poured more hydrogen peroxide over his broken leg in an attempt to do something constructive. We gave him a litter box, food, and lots of love but no one could pick him up. I explained that if he could get up to use the box, he would likely live. The first evening our patient couldn’t position himself in order to eat and dry food was out of the question because a large chunk of his cheek was missing, exposing several teeth. Holding a bowl of milk to his mouth, we found he could lap it with his tongue. Earnest prayers for an injured kitty were said that day. The next morning he was limping around the garage and two days later he began to eat solid food soaked in milk. Two down, seven to go – lives, that is.

Many years ago our oldest went outside on a chilly winter morning to feed the pets. He came running into the house crying, “Mom! Mom! Come quick! Twitch got out of his cage and he’s laying in the yard!” Tossing on a coat, I followed him into the barnyard. There was Twitch, laying in the snow, still, but warm. No amount of ruffling would rouse him. Carefully we picked him up, carried him into the house, and placed him beside the wood burning stove. Not positive that he was gone, and with five kids crying for me to do something, I had to make a quick decision. What would YOU do? A picture will forever be etched in the Morris kids’ memories of the day their mother gave a dead rabbit mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, just because she loved them!