Miss B.

Yesterday, I received a call on my cell phone at work from Miss B.  Now, I have not heard from Miss B in over a week, so was not as concerned as I had been a two weeks ago when she told me she had to move due to roach infestation in the house she was renting, and she didn't know what she was going to do with the two kittens I had asked her to keep in her house when I discovered them in her house after I went in to deliver a cat I had neutered for her and wanted her to keep that one in also due to her tender stitches.  The kittens were unneutered, and I told her they could get pregnant even at that young age.  So, Miss B. has kept them inside.

I met Miss B. about a month or so ago a few days after I was told by a girl who lives in the house on the corner where I had been feeding cats under a tree for about a month or so at that point.  The girl had told me that there was a woman that fed cats a few houses down, so I was anxious to meet someone who actually cared for cats in that neighborhood.  I did meet her a few days after that.  She seemed like a kind woman, but you could tell Miss B. has had a rough life.  I would say she is in her early 60s, looks a bit older than that, she has several teeth missing, and her frame is small and somewhat petite.  She had told me she she had just gotten back from Florida because her mother had passed.  I once saw her walking down another street with her cat 'Midnight Star' following her.  Miss B. told me a few weeks ago that due to roach infestation, she had to move out of her house and was staying temporarily in the Cadillac Hotel, a transient hotel in downtown Rochester.  I felt so bad for her.  She told me she was taking the bus in each day to feed the two kittens, but had to put the others out - the two girls I rescued, along with Allie, and Midnight Star.  She told me she was trying to find a temporary home for the two kittens.  I told her to keep in touch with me if she didn't have any luck.  After not hearing from her for a week I figured all was well.  When Miss B. called me yesterday, she told me she was now at the women's shelter downtown, a better place than the hotel, I am sure, and that she had to move the very next day, which is now today.  Her cats had to be gone, and she had no one to take them.  So thats now me.  I will wait for her call to tell me I can go over there and get them.  As a matter of fact, this morning as I was feeding the three cats left there under the tree, I walked past Miss B.'s house to just check it out in the dark, and heard a crie, and shined the flashlight on the open window to see one of the kittens there.  I did pick up Dawn dish detergent at the store just now because I am sure they are covered in fleas.

I have to tell you, at one point in the conversation with Miss B. yesterday, there was a pause, and then noise which I couldn't discern until I realized she was sobbing.  Can you imagine being at that point in your life, that age - being told she had to leave her house, AND her possessions due to the roach infestation - her clothes, etc.  She has nothing.  I tried to calm her, and I did, for a moment, I joked around telling her she could have my clothes, the clothes I couldn't fit into anymore, made a joke about me being a fatty and her a skinny., and I stressed to her that this was a  temporary situation for her, and that it would get better.  I told her that it couldn't get any worse than this, it could only get better.  I told her to take one day at a time, and just say her prayers, and she would get through this.  If I only had a place for her, I would move her there in a heartbeat.  I think about all the wealth in the world, and how people can spend thousands on useless things, but when there is a need for a roof over someone's head, there is no money to give.  Its just so tragic, so sad.  If anyone has anything they can give to Miss B., financial or otherwise, I am sure she would appreciate it.