Doyel: Thanksgiving story about a stray cat, Twitter, a Colts fan and Jim Irsay
Gregg DoyelGREENWOOD – We weren’t supposed to be in that field. Trespassing? I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s possible. The field is across the street from Community Hospital South in Greenwood, acres of grass under miles of power lines, the electricity so intense that you can hear it crackling overhead as you walk your dog.
Bzzzzzzz.
Bzzzzzzz.
Meow.
Wait, what? Oh, right. Cars are driving by on County Line Road. It’s a beautiful day, 70 degrees, blue skies, cars driving past with windows open. Probably some happy kid in the backseat, pretending to be…
Meow!
Louder now. Well, we’ve been trespassing, I mean walking, toward the back of this field, where the grass gives way to a ravine of some sort. It’s the size of several football fields, this ravine, and there’s no getting into it. This is where you turn around and head back for…
MEOW!
The noise is awfully close to my Black Lab puppy and me. Her name is Orchid. She has what you’d call an educated snout, and she’s heading for an unkempt area of brush surrounding a small tree. She’s shoving her big old bucket head into the brush, parting it with her educated snout, and there he is. Or she is.
The smallest kitten I’ve ever seen. A few days old? A week? Not sure. All I can tell you is, she’s curled herself into a ball inside the tall grass, acres from the nearest living person, terrified and crying and now I’m crying as I look at her, and as I write this, because this is the sweetest, saddest, most vulnerable creature in the world and she can’t stay there but I can’t keep her, and I can’t leave her. Who would do that?
Who did do that?
You’d have picked her up, too. Leash in one hand, Orchid just so happy and curious and trying to get a better look as you head home with this kitten, fitting perfectly into your other hand as you hold her snug to your chest. She’s not meowing anymore. That’s another sound.
Purrrr. Purrrrr. Purrrrrrrrr.
So many cats need saving
So many unwanted cats and dogs – kitten and puppies – in our country. Hard to imagine, but more than 6 million dogs and cats are taken to shelters every year, according to the ASPCA. Of those, 3.2 million are cats. Of those, more than 500,000 are euthanized each year.
I don’t want to say those are the lucky ones, because there’s nothing lucky about that. But for some cats, it could be worse. They are dumped, abandoned by monstrously selfish people who allow their unspayed cats to get pregnant and have a litter of kittens, and then just … take them somewhere else. Put them in a box and leave them in a field or in front of an abandoned house. Someone will find them. Someone will care for them. Right?
What would’ve become of this little kitten if Orchid and I had taken our usual walk along the County Line Road sidewalk, hundreds of yards from the brush where we found her? Had she curled herself into her final resting place? Don’t make me think that, please. But what else is there to think?
No time for those thoughts, thank goodness. We’re home now, Orchid unleashed and happy and hyper, this little kitten purring in my hand. Before Orchid, this was a cat’s home. My cat, Theageek, and my sons’ various cats, Marms and Minnie and Clementine. We’ve had to put down Theageek and Marms over the last few years, both well over 15 years old, their time at hand.
Doyel on Theageek: Loving Theageek was easy. That final decision was so hard.
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But Macon brings over Clementine from time to time, and Jackson brings Minnie, so we have a cat pan and litter and cat food. All of that is in the guest room, where I take our purring little guest and close the door behind us. Put her in the cat pan, scratch her dainty little paws in the litter, triggering that instinctive genius cats seem to have.
The kitty climbs out and heads for the food and water. She is eating fast. She is purring.
Take a closer look now. She is black and she is tiny, all but her ears, which seem fully grown. Her eyes are green, but they are closed as she eats. She is eating still.
But she’ll stop soon. And then what?
Colts owner shares video; Colts fan sees it
The video is amateurish, ridiculous, just me and my phone and that kitty as she keeps eating. It’s 40 seconds of me talking about the kitten in the field, now the kitten in my guest room, and asking for someone to please take her. Listen closely, and you’ll hear me sniffling. On Twitter, someone will respond to the video by suggesting I’m allergic.
Those aren’t allergies.
I’m devastated for this kitty, for whatever she was feeling in that field as she cried for anyone to save her, and I’m scared for her future – she’s not going to a shelter – and feeling more than a little guilty that I don’t want to keep her. I mean, I want to keep her. Look at that face! You’d want to keep her, too. But Orchid is here, and she’s a Black Lab puppy in training to be a service animal, someday, and it wouldn’t be fair to Orchid or the kitty to coop them up together.
Or maybe it would be OK, if I were willing to make it work. The guilt is crushing me. That video of the kitten goes onto Twitter on Friday at 11:13 a.m., with a message I’ve typed that starts with a question – Does anybody wants this baby kitten? – and ends with a plea:
Please somebody do this for him or her, and for me.
Immediately, people are sharing the tweet. Friends, strangers, people who love animals. Turns out, I'm not the only person invested in this kitty finding a home. More than 20 people retweet my video, including big-hearted Colts owner Jim Irsay.
Someone responds directly to me at 11:16 a.m., three minutes later.
Yes absolutely
Meet Elijah Helton, my hero
His name is Elijah Helton. His profile says he's a teacher, and his picture shows him outside Lucas Oil Stadium in a No. 53 Colts jersey. He doesn't follow me on Twitter, so I'm wondering how he saw my tweet so quickly ... oh, right. Jim Irsay retweeted it.
I’m reaching out to Helton on direct message (DM) on one screen and Googling him on the other. This feels too good to be true, and social media is just the place where you can get your heart broken, and I’m not finding him. Well, I’m finding a lot of “Elijah Helton” folks online, but nothing that says, to my satisfaction, this one in particular is real.
Elijah tells me on DM that he has an older cat, and has been thinking about getting another. He grew up in Indianapolis, a graduate of Lutheran High, with a family that always had rescue pets. That's what he says on DM.
I describe my guilt, tell him that “down deep I really want this kitty. I mean I want her,” but don’t think it’s best for her or Orchid.
“Which is why I’m so grateful that you’re being the hero here,” is how my DM ends.
He says he lives between the IndyStar and Gainbridge Fieldhouse, in one of the condos along Georgia Street.
This keeps feeling too good to be true. We set up a meeting at the John Wooden statue, the Hall of Fame coach from Martinsville crouching among a sea of legs, for Friday at 3:35 p.m. The timing checks out, if he’s the teacher he says he is.
“I’ll be wearing a blue windbreaker,” he says on DM.
“I’ll be holding a kitten,” I DM back, with a smiley face.
In my car, I curl my softest towel onto the passenger seat and set the kitty there for the 20-minute ride downtown. The kitty has other ideas, climbing into my lap and up my shirt toward my shoulder, where she purrs in my ear. I’m pulling into the IndyStar parking garage when my phone chimes.
“Headed that way,” he DM’s.
“Parking,” I respond.
I’m outside at 3:35, near all those bronze legs. People are walking past, staring at the kitty, but nobody in a blue windbreaker. He should be here by now. The cat is purring. No windbreaker. The cat is climbing up my shirt again, to my shoulder. No windbreaker. It must be close to 4 p.m. and he’s not here. I check my phone for a message from Elijah. No message.
Oh. It's just 3:37 p.m.
And there he is, marching west on Georgia Street, through the plaza area. We’re not meeting at the Wooden statue anymore, because I’m crossing Meridian and heading that way.
Elijah teaches science and coaches boys basketball at Emmaus Lutheran, a K-8 school near Fountain Square. He's 27. His dad coaches boys basketball. His mom works in the office.
“It’s a family affair,” he tells me.
Elijah has season tickets to the Colts, and goes to as many Pacers games as he can. He hopes they tank for Victor Wembanyama.
Elijah says he showed my 40-second Twitter video to the kids at school, and they’re fired up about Mr. Helton getting a kitty.
“I’m going to let the kids name her,” he tells me.
We talk for another minute or two, both of us just beaming. His other cat is waiting upstairs, where Elijah told it: “There’s a surprise coming for youuuuuuu!”
It’s just too much. It was too much when I found the kitty, too much when I found Elijah, too much now. Why am I crying? Some combination of regret, relief and gratitude, tears for an imperfect world that’s hard most of the time but not always, and for a perfect little kitty that found the softest of landings.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.