Host: Dan Kennedy
Dan: [00:00:01] You're listening to The Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. Welcome back to another episode. This week, we have just one story for you.
So, here at The Moth, we produce about 40 Mainstage shows every year all over the world. And out of the five stories that are in each show, we try to make sure one or two of them are local, which basically means that, you know, obviously the storyteller lives in that city or nearby, or sometimes maybe their story just takes place in the city where we're doing the show.
So, last year we held a Mainstage event in Portland, Maine. And the story you're about to hear is told by a nearby Maynard, which we learned that's what you call people from Maine, it turns out. Ther theme of the night was Into the Wild. Here's Jaed Coffin, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Jaed: [00:00:52] So. my wife is three or four months pregnant with our second child when my five-year-old daughter decides that she wants to get a cat. So, my wife grew up with cats, so right away she's all about it. I am not really a cat guy. As a boy, I spent a lot of time in my mom's village in Thailand. In Thailand, cats run feral in the streets. So, to me, having a cat in our house was a little bit like living with a possum or a raccoon. [audience chuckles] But I knew this was one of those really important family decisions where my opinion would matter about zero. [audience chuckles]
And so, as a consolation prize, my wife says, “Well, maybe you'd feel better about having this cat around if you got to choose the color, right?” [audience chuckles] So, instantly I'm thinking, I don't give a damn if the cat has fur. That's like American flag fur, whatever. And then, I get this idea. I think, I want a black cat. Because to me, black cats are not bad luck. Black cats are ninjas. [audience laughter] Yes, yes. And if they're ninjas, they're probably Asian. And if they're Asian, they might even have a little bit of Thai blood, right?
So, a few days later, my wife and daughter come home from the animal shelter and they've got this big box in their arms, and the box has got holes in it. My daughter's got this big smile on her face. She says, “Daddy.” And then, she puts the box on the floor, and opens the lid and out comes this little black kitten. My daughter's already got a name picked out for the cat. It's Poppins, as in Mary, right? So, apparently, this is the dirt on Poppins that she was found on the side of the road in a plastic storage bin that had been duct taped shut. [audience awe] I know. Horrible. [audience chuckles]
And the minute my daughter walked into the animal shelter, Poppin ran right into her arms, okay? So, over the next six or seven weeks, I start to learn a lot about what my role is going to be in Poppins life. [audience chuckles] This might be news. Apparently, pregnant women cannot be around cat litter. [audience laughter] I didn't know that. They can't. My daughter's only five, so I am like cat litter guy, okay? [audience chuckles] Cat box man. The other thing is that Poppins really likes to be outside. So, every time we open the door, Poppins runs outside. And more often than not, she will climb a tree and get stuck 30ft up in trees, okay?
And so, I actually like the whole tree part, because before I became a dad, I was really into mountaineering, and climbing, and doing dangerous things on ropes. So, this gave me an opportunity to dust off my gear, and go up after Poppins on these rescue missions as like the dad hero of our neighborhood. [audience chuckles] To me, it was like my weekly X games for domestic males. [audience laughter] And usually, there's a little crowd of neighborhood kids cheering me on and forlorn dads resenting me. [audience laughter]
Anyway, so, that April, my wife, goes into labor, we have this beautiful baby, another girl. The morning we get home, we've been gone for three days, we open the door, and what happens? Poppins runs outside and gets stuck in this really tall cedar tree in our backyard. And I'm thinking, Poppins, not a good time, Poppins, not a good time. We got the baby at home, I haven't slept in three days, but you got to do what you got to do. So, I go into my shop, get my rope out-- I'm not even halfway to the tree when I hear this horrible sound. it's the sound of my daughter screaming, and the sound of Poppins meowing as she rips through 40ft of cedar branches. I look up just in time to see her hit the ground, and land on all fours, and pause, and then just slump over.
I run up to comfort Poppins. She takes off in the other direction, but she doesn't get very far because she's dragging her broken leg behind her, all right? Back inside, my wife is nursing our newborn in one arm and consoling our five-year-old in the other. She gives me this very familiar look. And the look just says, “This is all you, Dad. [audience laughter] It's all you, Dad.” And I get it. So, I get down one knee, and I take my daughter's little tear-soaked face in my hands and I say, “Sweetheart, Daddy is going to fix this. I promise, I'm making this all better.” My daughter nods dutifully and my wife just rolls her eyes. [audience chuckles]
A few minutes later, I'm hammering down the highway in my truck. Poppins is in the passenger seat and she's panting in pain.We are headed 30 miles south to Portland to the emergency animal hospital. We would have gone to the local vet, but it's a Saturday, so we're headed to the 18 times more expensive emergency animal hospital. [audience chuckles] What am I doing? I'm looking at Poppins and I'm feeling things. But what I'm really doing is I'm running the numbers. [audience laughter] I'm like, “We got hospital bills, we got this new baby. I'm supposed to be taking time off from work to be at home.” And I'm thinking, I don't know what I can really part to make this happen.
So, by the time we get to the emergency animal hospital, I got two questions for the vet. I say, “I never really been through this before, but I need to know, can you save my daughter's cat for $700?” [audience laughter] And I say, “And if you can't, I need to know, do you have any other black cats?” [audience laughter] So, six hours later and nine issues of cat fancy later, I'm driving north again. It's like midnight, and Poppins is in the passenger seat. She's all doped up on pain meds, and she's got this big gnarly cast on her leg, and I got a whole handful of painkillers for kittens.
So, my job for the next six weeks is basically to make sure that Poppins doesn't run around too much, and re-injure her leg. So, I build this really elaborate cage out of old baby gates, and duct tape and rope. And Poppins, she just hates being inside this cage. It's heartbreaking. She gets really depressed and she starts sleeping in her litter box. Now, at this point, my wife is getting up 9, 10 times a night to nurse the baby. And I find myself waking up too, but tiptoeing downstairs just to check up on Poppins, you know? And at that point, I'm tired and it's late, and I start talking to Poppins. I say, “Poppins, I get it. I used to have a lot of freedom, too, Poppins. [audience laughter] I get it.” Poppins, she's not telling me anything. But by then, I can intuit her deeper feelings.
So, six weeks pass, and miraculously, Poppins leg heals. Good as new, all right? And this is when I get this bright idea. I say, “You know, maybe this cat's true nature is to roam. Maybe she's born to run.” And so, one morning, I open the door, and I say, “You know what, Poppins? Go free. Be an outdoor cat, Poppins. You earned it.” [audience laughter] And pretty soon, things are going great. Every night when I come home from work, I'm the guy. I'm calling out, “Poppins, Poppins.” And little Poppins just comes bounding across the backyard and runs into my arms. It gets to the point where I can't leave our house without Poppins jogging behind me, like a little puppy through our neighborhood. It even gets to the point where I decide that I'm going to start bringing Poppins to my office with me, and she can sleep on my feet while I write books [audience laughter]
And then, I get this bright idea, well, maybe I'll just carry her around in this little man purse satchel accessory. [audience laughter] So, not only have I become this cat guy, but I've transformed myself into this medieval beast master type figure, like, roaming around our neighborhood with a cat in a little leather thing, pouch. It's great, really important time in my life. And then, one night, Poppins doesn't come home. And I think that's okay. Poppins met another kitten. All right. It's all right. So, I leave a bowl of food out for Poppins on our front porch. Two nights go by, the bowl is still full. Three nights go by, the bowl is still full. I start to get worried.
The next day at work, my wife gives me a call, and she is crying. Apparently, Animal Control found a little black kitten in our neighborhood. Really, the only solace they can offer us is that it seems as though Poppins died the minute she was run over. So, I get home from work that night, and my wife meets me at the door, and she's crying. She tells me that Animal Control has dropped off Poppins body. And so, somehow, we break the news to my daughter, and she erupts into tears. And that night, as she would for the next three months, my little girl falls asleep with a framed picture of Poppins in her arms. When I get downstairs before my wife goes to bed, she gives me that look again. And it's that look that says, “This is all you, Dad.”
You know I'm Buddhist, and I consider giving my little Thai cat an open-air cremation. But this is a suburban neighborhood [audience laughter] in Brunswick, Maine. [audience laughter] I clean her up a little bit, I have a moment with Poppins, and I start crying. And then, I do something that I do whenever I have a lot of feelings that I just can't really make sense of. I start to build something. So, out of some old cedar boards, I start building Poppins, this very elaborate coffin. I'm at it for six hours, and it's two in the morning. And the last thing I do is build a lid for the coffin. And before I screw it down, I cut into the lid a hole in the shape of a heart that I make sure is just big enough for Poppins to crawl out of.
I don't know where kittens go when they die, but wherever Poppins is headed, I just want her to know that she's not trapped inside another box. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Dan: [00:13:37] That was Jaed Coffin. Although Jaed and his family lost Poppins, they never lost their love for cats. Sammy and Lila are the new feline members of their family.
Jaed Coffin is a writer from New Brunswick, Maine, who teaches at the University of New Hampshire. You can read all about his life as a Buddhist monk in his book, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants. And Jaed's newest book, Roughhouse Friday, that's about him winning the middleweight title of a barroom boxing show in Alaska that comes out in June.
Also, consider checking out your local ASPCA, and adopting someone like Poppins yourself. A great cat, a dog, some kind of beloved critter. There's all kinds of animals out there looking for homes. So, best friends you can have sometimes.
That's going to do it for us today. But before we go, I want to encourage you to tell your own story. Because we are nothing without your story, that you're the star of this show. Your stories make it happen. Pitch us at 1-877-7799-MOTH. That's 1-877-7799-M-O-T-H. As always though, most importantly, we hope you have a story-worthy week from all of us here at The Moth.
Catherine: [00:14:54] Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock on, and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth.
Dan: [00:15:00] Podcast production by Timothy Lou Ly. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.