Cat Stories - The Purr

I have a bunch of cats.  Six live in the house and three more live outside on the porch or in the barn.  Of the six in the house, one is an old fellow who used to live outside.  George has been around since the mid 1990's - along with his sister, Bennie - and he's always had a fantastic purr.  Well, until recently, anyway. 

George accidentally got locked in the storage shed on my property and spent the better part of a week in there with no food or water, no light, no litter box.  When my friend finally suggested looking to see if he was in there, he was curled up on the seat of a riding mower and clearly wasn't doing well.  He next took up residence in the bathroom where my roommate and I nursed him back to health.  He regained his appetite, stopped coughing and wheezing, got steady on his feet - but his purr has been forever changed. 

Instead of the robust purr he used to have, he now has a purr that sort of creaks, or grates, or protests as it comes out.  I suppose the delicate membranes in his throat or chest that make the purring sound were damaged by either the extended lack of water or maybe by cries to be let out of the shed that I didn't hear.  Whatever happened, I can hardly stand to listen to it - but he still purrs all the time.  And I do mean all the time.  Unless he's sound asleep, he's purring - loudly, raspingly, irritatingly.  When he's drifting off to sleep, it gets quieter and quieter, but if he's awake, it's up and running full throttle.  I don't know if he's telling the world he's happy to be alive, or if he's trying to make me feel guilty with this constant reminder of his traumatic week!  All I know is that it rubs my very last nerve the wrong way.

So why don't I put him back outside?  I did - he came right back in through the dog door.  Having been locked in the shed, he now refuses to be locked out of the house.  He's not the only cat who knows how to use the dog door, though.  The newest cat in the menagerie is Ruby, who came to the porch emaciated, having recently had and nursed kittens and hardly bigger than a kitten herself.  Again, she went into the bathroom (also known as a feline long term care facility) and by the time she was well enough to go back outside, she followed the dogs right back in.

Ruby, unlike George, never purrs.  I've never heard her make a sound - not a hiss, a purr, or a chirp.  But I've felt it.  Ruby likes to cuddle and one night I realized that I could feel her throat vibrating.  Her soundless purr was surprisingly comforting as she lay in my lap with her chin across my arm.  She has no voice, but she purrs anyway.  It is her personal expression of contentment and it is enough.

I learn a lot of things from the animals I keep company with.  I'm still trying to decide what to make of the cat who purrs all the time with such an ugly, irritating purr I want to throttle him and the one who keeps her purr to herself.  Maybe they're living proof of the notion from Ecclesiastes that there's a time for everything - for purring no matter how it sounds, and for keeping silent.  Maybe George is a living example of the notion that it's good to make a "joyful noise" even if it really does sound like noise (and not music) to anyone else.  And maybe Ruby is a living example of not praying in public, but lifting her voice to God in private.  Maybe they illustrate that it's not always the loudest voice that's most sincere or that still waters can run deep.  Maybe they both teach us that no matter how traumatic life has been, you have to find your own voice and your own healing and your own way to make peace with what's happened.  And maybe they're just cats who purr because that's what cats do - what do you think?