Ohio.com: Felines Inspire Copley Twp. Poet
Filed under: Pets 911 - February 11, 2008
The cats get the choicest morsels, best seats, most respect.
They take center stage in the life of a Copley Township widow who has marked the years by them.
When she was only 6, Mary Ann Fear paid in pain for teasing a tiger stripe while her mom was fetching her breakfast. More than 70 years later, you can still see the scars.
How did she cope?
She became a cat poet.
Fear wrote in a piece titled The Homeless Kitten:
She was such a tiny thing;
A little scrap of fur,
With runny eyes and matted hair;
My heart went out to her.
She was soaking wet
And shaking scared
And crying mournfully.
I wrapped her in a big,
Soft towel
And took her home with me. . . . Now she’s queen of the house. It’s up to me to catch the mouse.
“I write what I feel,” Fear said, eyes soaking up the shenanigans of one of her calico beauties, Penny, the youngster. The cat, oblivious to the movie moment, was wrestling with a stuffed mouse she couldn’t shake off one of her claws.
Nearby, Lizzie, the other calico, basked in the sunshine. Awhile back, she had a run-in with a vet after a bout of periodontal woes and is missing a few teeth, though nothing can take the shimmer off her radiating feline beauty.
Then there’s Smoky, a long sleek gray-black hunter, a prowler with a purpose (though nobody can figure out what it is). All three are rescues who found their doting mom through 30 degrees of separation, as cats are wont to do.
Over the years, there have been 40 or 50 of them.
“I’ve had a lot of cats and cried over every one of them,” said Fear. Five are buried in her backyard. Their graves are adorned with special plantings.
“They have a way of finding you,” said Fear’s sister, Ruth Hale, 88, who shares her sister’s affection and confesses to having owned, over the years, “holy moly, I don’t know how many.”
A 20-year designer of gift baskets at West Point Market, Fear heeds her muse at work, where she fishes through the store for interesting ingredients to tempt shoppers.
At home, she undergoes a similar creative process, writing in ‘’spells,” plucking the perfect words from pure air, composing pieces that sear a moment in time. Her poems have found homes in newspapers and Web sites and she has presented them at poetry slams and given them to friends and family.
The sisters tear up when they read and remember important family events punctuated by a cat.
I lost a piece of my heart today
As I held my Kelly, her life slipped away. . . . She went with dignity and grace
And now she rests in a better place.’
“I’m never alone,” said Fear, “I talk to them all day long.”
Foreclosure pets
Animal agencies around the country are reporting that families’ pets are also imperiled by home foreclosures.
“Shelters have seen an increase in pet surrenders due to families moving into apartments that prohibit animals,” says Pets 911, a national pet lost-and-found database. “Worse yet, some pet owners are just leaving their pets behind with the house or turning them loose in rural areas.”
Don’t do it. Pets are a lifetime commitment and members of the family and doable in a downsized lifestyle.
While shelters in our area are almost always overwhelmed with pets needing homes, there are plenty of apartment complexes that do accept pets. Pets911.com lists more than 53 pet-friendly complexes in Akron and many dozens more across Northeast Ohio. There are probably many others not on the list, so when in doubt, ask.
The Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS), a national organization with no local affiliates, urges pet owners to take the time to do the right thing.
While you’re shopping for a new place to live, gather proof that you’re responsible with your pets, documentation attesting to your conscientiousness as a pet owner, such as a letter or note from a previous landlord, your vet, dog trainer, property managers or neighbors.
When a landlord, manager or condominium committee gives permission for your pets, be sure to get the agreement in writing. “Comprehensive agreements protect people, property and the pets themselves,” says the HSUS.
Families feeling the pinch can cut the cost of pet ownership by forgoing expensive toys that dogs and cats really don’t need. It’s your time and attention that bonds them to you.
Keeping your pets safe from other animals and avoidable diseases and accidents will go a long way. Don’t let them roam alone, where they are prone to accidents and disease, and keep them on a leash when you are walking them. It is a moral imperative for pet owners to have their animals spayed or neutered and properly vaccinated, but if yours aren’t, go to all lengths to keep them out of parks and away from other animals.
If you are in desperate straits, ask your vet to work out a payment plan and to prescribe only the most vital of vaccines and services. Consider pet health insurance as a hedge against unexpected illness or injury.
The HSUS encourages landlords and housing managers to preserve the bond between responsible pet owners and their companion animals and offers resources that address landlord concerns at http://www.hsus.org.
Heaven House
Good news from deserving rescuers Heather Nagel and Pat Mihaly, who gratefully received a 2,000-square-foot house from an anonymous donor. The mother and daughter tag team are the heart of Heaven Can Wait, which rescues only from Summit County Animal Control. It wasn’t all that long ago that Nagel and Mihaly hung a shingle on their Cuyahoga Falls rescue and adoption center, which seemed to begin shrinking from Day One. Now they are shuffling off to their Heaven Can Wait House in the Howard Street corridor of Akron.
The grand opening will be 5-8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19. Come see the adoptable creatures and meet radio personality Tom Erickson from WNIR. The address is 51 Vesper St. You can reach Nagel at 330-328-8699 or visit http://www.heaven-can-wait.com.