Little gray cat and orange mouse

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

She gave it to me about 15 years ago, and ever since that day, the little bobble head cat has sat on my dashboard. 

The small plastic critter has moved with me from one vehicle to the next, greeting me whenever I sit behind the wheel, and driving with me wherever I go.

I remember the first day I met her in her grandmother's house down by the river. Her grandmother welcomed me inside and we sat in the small living room and talked. I could see a child's bedroom through a door. Stuffed toys marched across the floor. A pretty curtain hung across the room's window.

Her grandmother explained that she was a shy child, who seemed content to play in her room, but said she was looking forward starting at a new school in the fall. She liked to read and make pretend worlds for her stuffed animals and toys.

As we talked, I could see the animals moving closer to the living room door. Small hands guided them. In time a dark-haired, fair-skinned child peeked around the door. I glanced her way, but she quickly withdrew. Her grandmother suggested that perhaps I could play with her. I knew just what to do.

Outside, sitting on the dashboard of my jeep, was an orange plastic mouse that had been mine since I was a child. The mouse had followed me off to boarding school, college, and was now my constant traveling companion. Perhaps the mouse might play with the child and her animals.

I sat down on the floor outside the door, around the corner where I couldn't see into her room. With my help, the little orange mouse made his way around her door frame and into her room. The mouse asked if it would be all right to come inside and play. She said "yes." 

I inched my way closer to the door where I could see her, my orange mouse walking ahead of me with the help of my outstretched hand.

She invited us to play in her house, and oh what a beautiful house it was. It was two stories tall, had many furnished rooms, and everything had been lovingly built out of cardboard. My little mouse hopped right up on a cardboard chair at the cardboard dining room table. Her little animals gathered around. We played and talked for a long time, and all the time I could see her grandmother through the door, as she sat on her living room couch reading a book.

When it was time for me to leave, my mouse and I said goodbye, but not before we asked if we could return. She said yes, and ran to her grandmother to ask if we could come back tomorrow. We set up a date for the following week.

I returned to play often that fall, and visited with her at school. Her teacher described her as initially shy, but said that she was beginning to open up and make friends

Months passed, and I did what I had been assigned to do. I was her court-appointed guardian ad litem, and my role was to write a report for the court as to what was in her best interests, to either continue living with her grandmother or to return to the care of her parent. There was no doubt in my mind.

On my last visit with her, in her grandmother's house down by the river, I told her that I would not be back. I could see the disappointment in her eyes, but then her face lit up. She ran into her room and returned with the little gray bobble head cat. "Here, take my cat. This way you can always play with him when you play with your mouse," and so I did, and ever since that day, the cat and mouse have been my constant driving companions.

Years passed, and I often thought about the shy child. I wondered how she was doing. One day, as Greg and I were pushing our shopping cart through the grocery store, a voice called out "Are you Christine?"

"Yes," I said turning. She was also pushing a cart.

"You were my guardian ad litem," she said, and I instantly saw that she had grown up ever so well. She was working a job that she liked, had a boyfriend, and they were even thinking of buying a house.

We did not chat long. Shopping carts passed by either side of us. I never did mention the little gray cat she had given me those many years ago. Some things are just known, and don't need to be said.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.   

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