Why Furmom Named Me "Phoenix"

phoenix [fee-niks]

     noun

1.  a mythical bird of great beauty fabled to live 500 or 600 years in the Arabian wilderness, fabled to rise from its ashes in the freshness of youth and live through another cycle of years; often an emblem of reborn hope.

2. a person or thing of peerless beauty or excellence

3. a person or thing that has become renewed or restored after suffering calamity or apparent annihilation.

   

I is letting furmom type dis part cause she is insistent and cause she promised me a chin-scritchin' iffen I agreed. So now I is handin' ober the keyboard to furmom. I is not responsible fur wot she may type. I can only hopes it is not embarrassin'.

[Last year, on August 17, I was on my way to work. I had taken a back road so as to avoid the traffic on the interstate. I had just passed a little plaza of stores when I saw this small, gray object lying on the road. When I got closer, I was horrified to see that it was a kitten. It was evident the kitten was hurt and couldn't move itself from the peril of the road. I found the nearest place I could turn my car, stopped the car, left the door open, and ran towards the kitten. I did not care at this point who saw me or what people may think.I had to save this kitten! A school bus was approaching just as I reached the little baby. I scooped her up & cradled her in my arms. She was bleeding from one ear and her eyes were rolled back in her head. I didn't know what kind of damage she had sustained, or really even what had transpired to put her in the perilous position in which I had found her.

I sat with her in my car, cradling her and talking to her, telling her everything was okay, she was going to be fine, I was her mommy now. She meowed quite a bit and I didn't know if it was out of fear, of pain, or something else. I examined her more closely and she didn't appear to have any broken bones. I believe, though I will never know for certain, that she was probably underneath a moving vehicle & fell out onto the road where maybe another vehicle's tire bumped her. I do not believe a vehicle actually hit her, because as tiny as she was, it would have done more damage to her small body.

I called my friend at work who is in the maintenance department. I asked if he had a box I could place her in, and perhaps put her in one of our company's outdoor buildings or storage areas until I got off work. He did have a box. I put her in there with some paper towels for bedding, but she just looked so helpless in there. So I held her in my lap, at my desk all day (9-5). I tried to feed her, but she was still too weak and addled to have an appetite. My husband agreed to let me keep her. She improved more that day and the next, so I didn't feel like I needed to take her to the vet. (My husband might NOT have let me keep her if we had a vet bill to pay).

I named her Phoenix because, when I stopped my car & was walking toward her, she was trying to pick herself up off the road to get to safety. Like the mythical Phoenix, she rose from the ashes and found new hope, a new beginning.

Now Phoenix has her "furmom" and I have my best friend, who gives me "sugars" by rubbing her mouth and nose against my face. I love her more than I could possibly explain.   ]