Just When I Thought I’d See Them Grow Up

July 14, 2008

Yesterday morning, we noticed that our two kittens were missing. We looked for them everywhere - under the car, amidst the plants on our porch, in our yard. They were nowhere to be found. Their mother was meowing for them to come out, and she was lonely throughout the day, as if grieving for her dead children. She would look at me, just staring into my eyes, as if telling me something was wrong. We were worried as well.

A few theories came to our minds to possibly explain their disappearance.

1. They wandered off and never found their way home. But this would be contrary to their domestic nature. Cats as well as dogs always come back home unless something terrible happened to them. They always find their way home no matter how far they wander off.
2. They were kidnapped by the neighborhood kids. The kittens could slip right under our gate and would sometimes wander on the street, so we thought they might have been picked up by a neighborhood kid who wanted a pet. But they disappeared in the night, and the kids went home in the afternoon, making this theory highly unlikely.
   
3. The kittens were eaten by a snake. Our baranggay lives up to its name - Maahas (many snakes). So we wouldn’t be surprised if a snake was living in our yard or nearby. A snake was found at least twice in our garage and in our laundry area. So this theory is probable.
4. The kittens were eaten by the other cats or the mother herself. Cannibalistic behavior? Happened before. In one of her many births, the mother actually ate one of her kittens, the one who was the weakest and who looked sickly. Maybe it’s an evolutionary thing - getting rid of the weak and undesirable. But this theory is highly unlikely too because we didn’t see any cadaver or leftovers. Unless they were eaten outside our premises.

None of the theories above were strong enough to convince us. We were still in the dark as to why they suddenly disappeared. Then this afternoon I had a eureka moment. I remembered a show I watched on the National Geographic channel about a certain wild animal (my memory is so poor, I forgot what animal it was). Anyway, this particular animal is very protective of her young. When mating season comes and the mother is still nursing, she usually doesn’t want to mate no matter what the males do. So what the males do is they snatch the young from the mother and either take them away or kill them or eat them. That way, they could persuade or force the female much easily to mate with them. I think this is what happened to our kittens.

Since this weekend, two male cats were frequenting our yard and were courting the mother cat. But since she was still nursing her two kitties, tough luck for them. So I guess they resorted to taking away the distraction so they could mate with her. Realizing this, I felt some kind of closure and I am now accepting their loss. Nature is only taking its course, and I respect that.