Furby’s Second Book Preview
by Joyce Sammons
(Hodges, SC, USA)
My Beautiful Baby
I'm in the mood to tease everyone a little tonight. Here's the first chapter from the next Furby book. Get out a tissue before you read this. This one will probably be called My Name Is Furby: My 1st Year
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Hi everybody! It’s Furby. I’m going to try to write this book all by myself. Mama doesn’t always do it right. Since I’ve been in my forever home here with Laura, Lola and the dog critters, I remember a lot about my life. I even remember my last life as another cat. I want to tell you about that first.
A lot of mommies don’t know it, but there is a way back across the rainbow bridge. Let me start at the beginning.
In my last life my name was Tramp. I was a very sick little kitty abandoned in a ditch outside where mama lived. This was way back in 1993. Mama rescued me then too. My sissy Laura was just a young girl the day she found me and brought me home to mama. I was in a ditch with my cat mama and I was covered in fleas. I got a bath on my first day in that life too. I can’t seem to escape baths no matter who I am. I got better from the fleas but I couldn’t keep food from making me sick. I poo-pooed every time I turned around and it just wouldn’t stop. So mama took me to the vet and got me some medicine. The medicine didn’t work and mama was gonna have to leave me because she traveled a lot back then. So she took me with her. She took me to a nice doctor and he gave her the medicine that made me better. I had distemper so it’s a miracle I lived. I was named Tramp because I tramped around in a lot of motels while I traveled with mama.

When mama got home with me Spot came running up to see me. He was the best buddy I ever had. Mama moved a few months after I got better. Her mom was sick and she moved back to where she had lived as a girl. Spot was really old and sick by that time. I didn’t know it, but he died the day after he moved back to his boyhood play ground.
Mama took me in the house there and I went around everywhere meowing for him. Nobody told me he had died and went over the rainbow bridge. I sure did miss him. After awhile I gave up looking. It took me a long time to realize he wasn’t playing hide-and-seek.
Not long after that I got very sick. I was dizzy and couldn’t walk or eat. Mama fed me with a syringe and held me all of the time. She took me to the doctor and the doctor told her I had FIP and I was going to die. Mama cried a lot and I died with her holding me. Spot was waiting for me at the middle of the rainbow bridge. I was SO glad to see him.
A lot of people don’t know it, but we can cross back over the rainbow bridge if there is a good reason to. I did it and I know a lot of your have your cats back too. I want to tell you how I got to come back.
Like I said before, there has to be a good reason. I was playing on the rainbow bridge with Spot one day and God came to see us. He asked Spot and me both if we wanted to go back to earth to be with mama. Spot had to think on it a few minutes because he’s been here a really long time. He also had a long life on earth. So in the end he said “no.” He wanted to stay on the rainbow bridge because he has a job there. He welcomes all the new kittens who get there so fast they don’t know what happened. He was waiting for me when I got there. Guess that was where he was hiding from me all along.
When God gave me the chance to go back and be with mama I was SO happy. I have a lot of fun on the rainbow bridge, but I still remember how sad mama was when I left her the first time. He said mama was very sad now because she was losing someone she loved. God explained to me I would have a very very hard life for my first month back on earth. Then I would be happy and cared for the rest of my life. I really wasn’t listening to that part. All I could think of was the chance to be with mama again. I still loved her after all the years in heaven. So off I went back to earth.
God wasn’t wrong about me having a bad life. My cat mama was a feral who lived in a barn and had to hunt for food. I had several brothers and sisters, but I was the smallest. They took my food from me (when there was food) and even mama treated me like she didn’t want me. She didn’t even want me to have any of her milk when I was a little baby. One day she took my brothers and sisters and left me. I still don’t know what happened to them. I woke up cold and hungry in the barn. I didn’t try to find them because something is wrong with my legs and I walk funny. I was afraid I’d get too far from my barn and not be able to get back. Do you think mama threw me away because of my legs? I’m a sweet kitty. I really am.
I’d been alone a few weeks and was so skinny and weak I could hardly walk. I could hunt bugs for food but that was about it. Everything else ran too fast for me to catch. And to make things worse there was ice on the ground in the mornings so it hurt to walk. My feet got cold!
I’ll never forget the day I saw a bright warm light across the road. I don’t know how I did it, but I made it across to see what it was. I’m a little too curious sometimes. This turned out to be a good thing. There was a man sitting under the light. He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt and a baseball cap. It wasn’t God, but he seemed nice. He told me God had sent him to give me a message. The man told me I was to go back across the road when he told me too. He said I’d have to listen really well because he wouldn’t actually be there to tell me when to go back to my barn. He said he had to find my new earth mama and make her leave the place where she was saying goodbye to him. He also told me I’d love her because I’d been with her before.
Could it be my earth mama from my past cat life? The one who had cared for me and saved me and cried for me when I was too sick to live. I was so excited I almost couldn’t wait to go back across the road. It was so HARD to be a good kitty after he left to tell mama to come find me. After what seemed like FOREVER I heard his voice. He said “Go now, little one. Go RIGHT now! So I started to cross the road back to the barn. I was so tired and hungry I was afraid I’d never make it. There was a car coming right toward me.
I made it across the road and stopped in front of the barn to catch my breath. Then the car came back my way and parked right in front of the old barn. I couldn’t understand because the barn is out in the middle of nowhere with no houses. A lady got out of the car and ran over to where I was sitting. She was calling “here baby kitty. Here kitty kitty kitty.”
I looked up at her and froze. She looked a little different than I remember. After all, it had been sixteen years since I’d seen her. She was crying the last time I saw her and she was crying now. It was my mama! I’d found my human mama again! I was so happy I couldn’t even breathe. I was afraid she’d disappear.
She looked down and saw me and I saw her and it wasn’t just love at first sight. It was remembering at first sight. I knew her and she knew me. I let her pick me up and put me in her car. I remembered cars because she used to take me for rides all the time when I was Tramp. I would lay on her left leg and sleep. I didn’t sleep on her leg today. I was too weak and I was afraid I’d fall off. So I rode on the seat beside her. I got bored with that and got in the floor of the car for the rest of the ride. The heat blew from down there and made me feel good and warm. I’d been cold for so long. That’s what happened up until the time I arrived at my forever home.
Furby