Dharma Found in Verdun!

Getting closer to my young neighbor, I noted she held a forlorn paper bag of Cat Nip pellets, her pale face and red-rimmed eyes testified her grief. “C’est la deuxieme journee” she whispered and then in English, “My cat is lost!”

“Viens,” I replied to Myriam, new to Verdun. “Let’s look together. “Je connais le coin tres bien!”

We sleuthed down Rushbrooke, up around May and then on to Wellington where our first stop was at the home of passionate feline lovers, Janine and Andre Veronneau.

The long-time Verdun residents opened their front door to lovingly console their new neighbor and then announced that yes, they’d seen her cat yesterday! They advised we check out the garage area of the building a few doors down and said they would call us as soon as they saw the cat again – not if but as soon as.

Myriam smile, but just a tremulous little.

“I got her in France, in Bretagne, seven years ago and brought her to Canada with me six years ago,” she anguished, wringing her hands. “Oh! I can’t lose him now!

She added “Dharma wears a red neck band”.

As we left, we saw a young man and his daughter out on their back deck and showed him Dharma’s photo. “You will give birth soon, right?” he asked Myriam “It’s not good for you to be upset, is it? You’ll find her! He encouraged. I’m Fabian, he introduced himself and I’ll bring Karma to your house when I see her, I promise! Not if but when. Hopeful words.

Next, close to the church, we saw a woman raking leaves in her back yard. She smiled a calm welcome as we approached with the flyer. “Hi, I’m Eleanor and this is my neighbor, Myriam whose cat is lost”, I explained.

“It is important that you find your darling pet, dear young mother”, she said noting young Myriam’s belly. My name is Huldah Joseph, she said. “Would you like me to say a prayer for Karma’s safe return?

And so the three of us, all neighbors, formed a close circle in a back woodlot we’d never been while an ardent request for the speedy return of this black, orange and white pet to her distressed young mother was made. “Everything will be okay,” consoled Huldah, the cool, lacey shadows of her yard’s brambly trees nodding full assent.

Next we rang the front doorbell of St. Athanasius Church on Wellington St., but no answer, so I climbed the iron stairwell in the back where I know the sexton resides, and knocked on Ed. Brown’s door. A surprised young man appeared instead. “I’m David” he said “I’m a house guest here – and I’d be very glad to help you. “Yes!” he cried “Yes, I’m sure I saw that cat in the basement last night! I recognize the red collar!”

Upon hearing we might be getting a little closer to Dharma, or Karma, (I couldn’t remember the cat’s name again and did not want to keep asking – as though it was not memorable ) I heard the clatter of David’s feet, racing down several flights of stairs, to open the basement door for us.

“She was in that room”, he said breathlessly, pointing to a dusty storage space filled with old boxes of paper and some broken church benches, “The cat just tore out of here when I opened the door”, said David.

Myriam, returning from her preliminary inspection of the garage, said that it might be better if she was alone to call her very shy pet, so David continued checking the kitchen area and I went back into the garage.

“Karma, I whispered, “Karma or Dharma, how are you today?” I sing-songed in a baby-gentle voice, the same one I use for young children.

‘Mew”, I heard.

I stood very still and sang again, “Dharrrmaaa, karrrrmaaa, do you hear me?”

“Mew”!

Oh! What blissful monosyllabic sound emerged from the dusty darkness!

I called Marian and David. “Come! Come! …arma’s here, I said, (carefully omitting the initial consonants).

Myriam came trundling in as fast as her heavy body would allow, her sweater riding high over her tender belly now, like a tea cozy over a watermelon. She shook her little paper bag of cat food and called her beloved’s name.

She too heard the wonderful, immediate reply: ‘Mew!”

Myriam’s face, pinched in grief, opened like a flower for the first time.

Intense and anxious for she so wanted the promising sound to be Dharma’s, Myriam desperately searched around the dozens of heavy bags of broken bits of cement while David and I hauled more sacks away from the grey stone wall.

“We need a flashlight” breathed Marian anxiously and so I quickly left to find one.

I whipped to Fabian’s who looked over my head, laughed and said, “You won’t need a flashlight now!”

I turned to see, framed in the background of Maxi’s open air market of summer fruit, jubilant Myriam hugging her precious furry bundle in her arms, rocking back and forth with a consoling motion she quietly made. Dharma’s long tail descended to outline her pregnant roundness, perhaps her way of including the baby soon-to-be-born, in this ecstatic moment of rich reunion. Myriam sunk her face into Karma’s neck and for the first time, tears rolled freely, easily absorbed by feline fur.

Huldah leaned on her rake and smiled widely while Janine and Andre opened their front door. David, Fabian, his daughter and I respectfully witnessed the ecstatic moment.

On Saturday, we gathered once again for chocolate cake in my back yard, to thank Dharma for her clever method of getting her Verdun friends together!