Life is a Journey: Live it (Part 120)

The other autobiography
Frieda Schöngruber wanted to divert the conversation, asking: “Please, can we talk about something serious...but not so serious to make us somehow depressed?

The rest of the group agreed. I kept my mouth shut, thinking and thinking how best to entertain them and keep myself awake. It came to my mind: “My cat Moritz, who saved my life?“

Susanne Fröhlich was all over the moon begging: “Oh, for sure! Tell us more about him and your relationship with him.“ The rest agreed.

„Moritz, as I mentioned before, was a three-year-old male cat when we met. He was in the household of one of Walter Bolten's five daughters, the last boyfriend of my mother, as you still recall. They lived in a small apartment near the Hamburger Meile shopping mall. The parents of one got another child, and Moritz developed jealousy of the newborn baby. It was time for them to look for a good place for him to stay. While in the Studienkreis in Schwarzenbek, my mother rang me up asking whether I was still looking for a cat, and I said yes. I fixed an appointment for the same evening with the family, and they welcomed me very well. Chatting along in the living room around the living room table, all of a sudden, Moritz appeared. I spotted him the moment he came from behind the door leading to the hall of the flat.

He was a German short-haired race with grey and black stripes and one white spot on his chest. The moment he spotted me, Moritz walked around my legs, rubbing his face on both my legs, typical for cats to bond with a human. Instantly, I felt a connection to him and agreed to take him back to Schwarzenbek. Sleeping in the school was not comfortable at weekends. Therefore, I took him with me to my mother from late Friday to early Monday. Wherever I went, Moritz went with me. He did not like his transportation box, but after a few minutes of shouting and complaining, he sat in his corner and accepted whatever was supposed to come. Moritz knew I would go to bed normally around ten at night. He sensed it when I was ready to go to sleep. Putting my head on the pillow was his signal to cuddle with me. He would walk over my body and lie down beside me, close to my head, waiting for a good-night kiss. Ten minutes later, he would get up again to do in the apartment whatever he wanted to do. Around six in the morning is when I normally wake up again. If I wanted to sleep a bit longer, Moritz would walk over me again and not rest until I got up. Mostly, the food for the night would have finished, and he wanted to have his breakfast. When he was fed, he would sit at the window to watch people passing by or birds singing in the trees.

The moment I returned home, Moritz would sit behind the door waiting to see me. We took a moment to greet each other before he showed me the way to the kitchen and his empty bowl. Twice a year, Moritz developed epilepsy attacks, which at first frightened me. When I was aware of such an attack, he came closer to me, asking for help while shaking, falling, getting up again, before falling again and again. I rushed him to the Emergency Ambulance in Hamburg Othmarschen, where I had him checked. When the vet advised me that cats do develop such symptoms, and when they occur once or twice a year, no alarm needs to be raised. And so it was always. After ten minutes watching over him, Moritz came back to normal.

He and Emma Heerde never got to love each other. Mostly because in Kenya, cats are not seen as pets like in Germany, and secondly, she was not particularly interested in him, seeing him as my pet, not as a family pet. Moritz would never sleep by Emma Heerde`s side, but only come to me for his good-night kiss. The time came, and I was supposed to leave for Ghana to see the used shoes for Peres Heisig. Around Christmas of 2011, Moritz was not feeling particularly well. After the New Year, I took him to the Vet at Sülldorf Station for his last check-up. The vet recommended an operation, which she undertook two days later. We sent him home, and I was worried about him. At that time, Emma Heerde lived with her boyfriend Jörn Biehl in Altona. While I watched over Moritz day and night, his health deteriorated further. He was no longer able to stand on his feet. He tried to walk but fell constantly. I took him back to the vet. She examined him and said a nineteen-year-old cat had a blessed long life. The best...my last gesture of love would be to take him down. She asked her assistant to lead me to a quiet room and give me time to say goodbye to him. On an operation table, Moritz lay before me...sorry....it still makes me cry...even after all those years, “I stopped and looked into the night sky with the clear stars shining bright. It took me a few minutes before I pulled myself together again and continued: “The doctor came in asking whether I could let Moritz go. For half an hour, I had talked to Moritz, seeing him in his pain. I allowed the doctor to come in while I left the room and walked home, my eyes filled with tears. The doctor had asked me what to do with the dead body of Moritz. I did not know what to answer and had asked her to do with him whatever she thought would be appropriate.

The next morning, I walked over to her and asked about the dead body of Moritz. She took the cold and stiff body out of the freezer and wrapped it in a blue cloth. Behind the house, Sülldorfer Landstraße 306, under a tree at the fence close to the railway tracks, I dug out a hole deep enough to cover him and put him into it. I covered the stiff body with soil, said a prayer over it and there he still is today.“

„Do you still think of him till now?“ asked Frieda Schöngruber starring at me to see the slightest movement in my face.

„Thinking of him will never end. I mean, he saved my life, and for sixteen years, in good and bad times, he was at my side. He never left me...while humans did,“ was my simple answer. „Looking back, I realise God`s time is always the best. What I did not notice and thought of in the time before his end was the question of what I would have done with him, as I had to leave Germany and leave him in the hands of Emma Heerde...never possible. At his age, close to twenty years...no way anyone would have wanted or taken him. Looking back...I mean...he died at the right time. It sounds cruel...but so it was. God chose the time for me to leave Germany; therefore, he took care of the situation with Moritz.“

Frieda Schöngruber said, and he voice was filled with joy: “What a great testimony!“

„I love your stories,“ agreed Susanne Fröhlich and took Hans Wilder in her arms. „I wish you could be my grandfather sitting each night at my bedside, telling me wonderful stories about so many things in life.“