The teeniest baby ever, he was unabashedly spoiled. The first 2 weeks, he never left my bedroom. I think I kept a small litterbox in my closet? The entire double-bed to share with me and his very own pillow, and he could only sleep stretched out across my throat. The few times he slept on the pillow, it was between the top of my head and the headboard. He was spoiled and pampered, fiercely defended from Adam's terrorizing attacks, and crooned and coddled excessively when frightened.
Eventually the time came to venture forth into the Great Outdoors. Sitting in the grass, placing him among the chest-high blades, his alarmed mewing all the while climbing up onto my shoulders and neck and perching there like a bird, hiding under my hair at the nape of my neck, peeking out from behind my ear. All to suddenly it became known as "Kamp Kunky" that he would cry to be trapped indoor away from the yard.
My basement bedroom window was his pet door, the screen removed and the window locked open "one kitty width" to allow him access. Muddy pawprints forever marked my white wall below the window; drapes and venetian blinds were no longer sacred. Trying to keep him inside longer to sleep in with me only elicited bent and broken blinds. He appreciated Mummy and would return from his wanderings with muddy earthworms to feed me and care for me, in return for caring for him. Tossing them back out the window only garnered his annoyed and pouty meows of "Mom!?!"
His meow as a kitten sounded like a voice-breaking reverberation like breath off a blade of grass pressed between thumbs: "mee-ooow". For the next 10 years, he comes running when that sound is used to summon him to me.
Our "Christmas Visitor" one year was Mistletoe (aka Missy). Slightly older than a kitten, she was meant for the whole family, but adopted me as her mummy. Kunky, ever the agreeable host, welcomed her to our little unit and they became my "Bookends" (she happened to be white).
One night Kunky didn't come in at bedtime and I stayed up half the night searching the neighborhood. Days passed and I thought he must have been picked off by the coyotes. But as luck would have it, he was actually trapped in the neighbor's basement. Frightened by their children, he had hidden under the bed in the spare room and got locked in for a few days until discovered. Slightly thinner and skittish, it didn't take long for him to get over his trauma and revert to "Kamp Kunky" once again.
Then the time came that I moved out of home and was unable to take him with me to live at Jason's house (he was often babysitting his mother's cat for extended periods of time, and the cat was not agreeable to other cats). Possibly feeling abandoned by Mummy after years of spoiling, he was forced to fend for himself and re-establish himself in the household cats' hierarchy now that I was no longer there to protect him and foster him in my sanctuary. As new kittens joined the family, he assumed the role of denmother and nurtured the orphans who were slow to be accepted by the older cats; grooming them and snuggling with them and making sure they felt welcomed and accepted and loved. Periodic visits by me failed to elicit his exuberant affections, but instead met with his "pouting" and punishing me for abandoning him. Eventually, though, he came around and remembered me and how much I loved him and how much it hurt to have to leave him behind.
When I was moved to a place where I could finally have him live with me again, nearly 7 years had passed with him living in a large house full of other cats to play with, in a large neighborhood full of the Great Outdoors, and next door to the farmyard. It would have been cruel to force him to be an indoor apartment cat after having such a free and enjoyable life outside, especially taking into consideration how he would CRY when denied being let outside over night.
Whenever I would return home to visit, no matter where in the neighborhood he happened to be at the time, he recognized the sound of my car's engine and would rush to greet me in the front entryway before I can even get out of the parked car and call out "mee-ooow!" to summon him. Mummy was back to lavish him with love and cuddles and pets and spoil him absolutely rotten infront of all the other cats who could never be as special and loved and favoured as my Kunky.
Last year I moved back home, and with him again. Unable to keep him in my room due to his wanderlust and yearning to come and go at HIS choosing, he slept instead in the living room with the other cats rather than with me. Oftentimes, though, he would cry to be let into my room so he could come to bed and "tramp" on Mummy like a kitten attempting to nurse. In my absence, he had become Dad's cat to some extent, and seemed to enjoy vexing me by lavishing his kitty-affections on Dad while I was in the room to witness. The tramping and the drooling! What a brat! But he was adopted and well-cared-for by Dad in my absence, which is what he intended for me to see, and not that he was meaning to incite my jealousy and punish me but to show me that he was cared for so I could be reassured that he hadn't been neglected.
Then, again, I had to move out and again it would have been cruel to take him away from the only home he had known. He would have to endure, yet again, the pain of being abandoned by Mummy. But a few days later I would return to lavish attention on him. And then again another few days later. And the last time he had been doted on during my visit I lavished excessive attentions on him: a thorough brushing of his messy fur with a fine-toothed comb and a kitty backrub, and LOTS of frisking in the yard with him, following him while he showed me all his world he wanted me to see.
And now I have shown you.
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