The Story of Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a kitten who lived with us for almost 2 years. I loved him a lot and decided that the best way not to forget him was to write down the stories about him.

It all started one day in the fall of the year 2001 when Helen's doorbell rang. When she went to the door, her neighbour Karen was at the door holding a small tabby kitten. Tabby is a word we use to describe a cat that has stripes. This kitten had stripes, which were made of black, and grey and brown all mixed up together. Like most kittens, his legs looked too long and his ears looked too big.

Karen and her husband Daryl had been walking their dog, Kolo, a large Golden Labrador. Kolo had found the kitten in a ditch, and it had followed them home. It was trying to get inside their house by climbing the screen on their back door. Karen liked the kitten but was worried that it might not get along with Kolo.

Kolo had a very important job. He was a guide assistance dog who helped Karen with all her work because Karen can't see very well. Kolo was very smart and he had learned how to give Karen just the kind of help she needed. Kolo was a very wonderful, kind, friendly dog.

Karen was hoping that Helen would adopt the kitten. She knew that Helen liked cats a lot, and that there was only one cat living at Helen's house at that time. Helen agreed to look after the kitten while they looked for its people, and the kitten came to live at Helen's house.

Helen put a found ad for the kitten in the lost and found part of the newspapers. However, nobody called looking for the kitten and in the meantime, Helen came to like it very much. Helen, Karen and Daryl also noticed that the kitten liked Daryl and Karen's house just as much as it liked Helen's house, and that it was making friends with Kolo after all. In fact, the kitten was spending just as much time at Daryl and Karen's house as it was at Helen's house. Helen, Daryl and Karen all lived in a cul-de-sac with only five houses, so it was not far to Karen and Daryl's house, and there were not many cars to worry about on the road.

The kitten really, really liked Kolo. It was not scared of Kolo at all, even though Kolo was much, much bigger than the he was. He even liked to play with Kolo. He would hide around the corner of the sofa then jump out and run straight at Kolo just like he was going to attack but then he would veer off right at the very last moment. He thought it was a wonderful game. He also learned to jump up on the clothes washing machine and then jump down on Kolo's back while Kolo was eating. Kolo really didn't like that very much but he was such a friendly dog that he never, ever did anything that might hurt or scare the little kitten. They played lots of games. Sometimes the kitten chased Kolo, sometimes Kolo chased the kitten. This picture is not Kolo and the kitten but it looks just like them.

The kitten would spend the day with Helen until Karen and Daryl came home from work and then he would go next door to stay with Kolo, Karen and Daryl until bedtime. Karen and Daryl even had a bag of cat food at their house so that the kitten could have a snack if he wanted to. They made him a comfortable bed out of a round basket and a nice soft piece of sheepskin so that he could have a nap if he wanted to. Cats need a lot of naps you know.

One day, not too long after the kitten came to live in the cul-de-sac he just disappeared. He didn't come home for his dinner and he didn't go to visit Kolo. Helen and Daryl and Karen became very worried about him, and Helen decided to put another ad in the newspaper, this time for a lost kitten. It was hard for Helen, she answered many phone calls about little tabby kittens, and went to look at quite a few that people had found but none of them were the right tabby kitten. Then one day, a lady called who lived not too far away at the top of the hill, and Helen had a good feeling. She went to see the lady and sure enough, there was the kitten. Nobody knew how he had got that far away from home. Some children thought that he had followed them from down by the graveyard, but even that was a long way from Helen's house for a kitten.

Helen decided that the kitten liked to go on adventures. She remembered the story of a famous man who went on long adventurous journeys who was named Marco Polo, so she decided the kitten would be the named after him. Soon all the people in the cul-de-sac called him Marco Polo, or Marco for short.

Marco grew up to be a very calm and brave cat. He did not get scared easily and liked meeting new people. Helen decided that it might be a good idea to introduce him to her brother Ralph, who was sick and lived in a place kind of like a hospital. Ralph couldn't get out of bed and walk around because he had a disease called Multiple Sclerosis (MS for short). When you have MS the messages that your brain sends to your muscles get all mixed up so your legs and arms do not work very well. After a while you can't walk because you trip and fall. Ralph rode in a wheel chair with a electric motor sometimes, but mostly he stayed in bed because he was so sad about not being able to walk and run and jump anymore. He didn't smile very much any more either.

Helen took Marco to visit Ralph. She put him in a carrying box for cats, and took him in the car to where Ralph lived. Marco didn't like the car very much but he was quite happy when they got to Ralph's room. Marco was still very kittenish and he liked to play and explore and sleep a lot. Marco liked how he got lots of attention when they went to visit Ralph. He would play kitten games like ripping up a piece of newspaper or chasing a string. Then he would get tired and curl up beside Ralph and go to sleep purring. Marco made Ralph very happy. Ralph would smile and laugh and sometimes he would fall asleep too, petting the purring kitten. It was good to see Ralph smiling.

One of the funniest things about Marco was that he loved to eat almost everything. Helen thought it was because he had been lost and had to learn how to feed himself when he was just a baby. One day when they were visiting Ralph at the hospital someone else came to visit. The visitor accidentally spilled some Coke on the floor, and everyone laughed because even after they wiped up the Coke off the floor with a paper towel Marco could still smell it and he was trying to lick the floor to get the left over Coke.

One person who was not very happy about living with Marco was Leisha. She was Helen's other cat, and much older. When cats get older they don't like to play as much as they did when they were kittens. However, Marco thought Leisha should play with him, and he tried so hard to get her to play. He would chase her, and jump on her, and pretend to chew her ear. She would just get so grumpy and start to growl, or go way up high on her cat climbing post to try to get away from him. Sometimes he would chase her up the cat tree, and they would have a play fight at the top of the tree with Marco hanging by one paw while he tried to bat at Leisha with the other paw. Leisha just kept getting grumpy. She just wanted him to go away and leave her alone. She knew he just wanted to play, but she didn't want to play at all.

The other person who wasn't very happy about Marco being around was Patches. Patches was a big boy cat who got left behind when the neighbours moved away. He hung around the house and went kind of wild, One day, Helen caught him sneaking into her house to eat some of Leisha and Marco's cat food. Helen kept Patches in a bedroom until he calmed down a little and when he got to be friendly then she decided to take care of him for a while and try to find him a new family. However, he was jealous of Marco. He thought Marco was getting all the attention, and he always wanted to have fights with Marco to prove that he was the biggest and strongest cat in the cul-de-sac. Marco didn't want to fight and Patches was much bigger than he was, so sometimes Patches would beat Marco up and Helen would find that Marco had a cat scratch that was infected. Marco had to go to the vet and have medicine for the infection. He didn't like that one little bit. He was very grumpy about Patches, and was much happier when Patches got lost when Helen tried to help him find a new family.

Unfortunately, while this story had a pretty happy beginning, and a good middle, it has a sad ending. Marco followed some people out on the main road one day and got hit by a motorcycle that was racing by. He was hurt too badly to get better and he died. We cried a lot, and made him a nice grave in the garden near the fence where Karen and Daryl could see too, so that they could smile and remember how much fun it was to know him while he was here. Even though there are lots of stories that end saying that people lived happily ever after, as we grow up we get to know that everyone is born and everyone dies sometime, and that its important to love the people we love as much as we can while they are here so that we will have wonderful memories to make us feel not quite to sad after they are gone.