Obi was acquired with my two children back in 2000. He was in a cage at the SPCA. I told my two kids (and to be fair to both), one can pick the animal, the other gets to name the animal. One rambunctious kitten was jumping all over the cage. I was thinking to myself, “Don’t pick that one, don’t pick that one!” Yep, he picked THAT one! After choosing this feral feline, my daughter decided to give this cat a mighty warrior and proud protector name (I loved it) – Obi Wan Kanobi.
Obi lost his “first” life through sheer terror. Being bored one Saturday afternoon, my young son decided to tape streamers up to the ceiling fan. It made a cute twirling tornado-looking structure in the middle of our living room. Being one still quite close to his new cat, Jason had to go get Obi to show him what a wonderful item he had created. Obi took one wild-eyed look at the mini-tornado, ran down the hallway like the devil himself was after poor Obi and cowered in a remote bedroom corner. To this days Obi always glances with a leery eye at ceiling fans whenever he enters a room with one in place.
The second event occurred when Obi tried to beat the garage door going down. It had the child protection feature, but poor Obi was trying to slink as low as he could go and the detector missed seeing his body hugging the garage floor. Unfortunately, I neglected to see poor Obi as well as I was headed off to work and had closed the garage door while I was driving off down the road.
After about 30 minutes, my daughter called, crying, saying the cat was stuck under the garage door. I asked her if she had raised the garage door. “No, I’m afraid it will continue going down!” She has always had such a tender heart for animals. I told her to press the garage door button and that it should bounce back up. She did this and Obi miraculously appeared to have no broken limbs. However, shortly aftewards, he began throwing up, so a productive day at worked turned into me taking off work and taking my cat to the vet to see what damage had been done. Fortunately, other than losing a few back claws, Obi appeared to be okay.
Obi’s third (and hopefully, final) near life loss was an event that I endured with him. I was home alone with Obi. There was a heavy thunderstorm with high winds and possible tornadoes headed our way in the evening. I live in tornado ally and have lived through many tornadoes and had seen many funnel clouds in my life, but this night was different somehow. I was terrified. So was Obi. We crouched together in my hallway as I held him stroking him to calm both of us. I heard the wind wailing outside.
There were two large sycamore trees in my back yard that were probably a good 40-60 feet tall. I heard the sound of splintering wood, a loud cracking noise – more than just a branch, and I braced myself for the crash on the roof and possibly it caving in on myself and Obi. I heard the tree go down, shaking the surrounding ground as it fell. The next morning I checked to see what damage had been done. Miraculously, the tree was placed strategically where it didn’t hit any power lines (I had them running all over my back yard), and it placed a gentle, yet fixable dent in the fence between me and my neighbor.
At 12.5 years old, Obi has been through a lot, yet he is still the loving gentle pet he was from the first day we saw him – unless there is a storm . . . or he sees a ceiling fan . . . or he hears a garage door open . . . or the dog, Chance, decides to give him chase.
Country Girl Meets Urban Squirrel 