Jeffery Kooistra - Snowball

Illustration by Steve Cavallo

I would have been preaching at that time on Christmas Eve, preaching some variation of my usual holiday sermon. But a huge blizzard had blown in, canceling my service for that night, and for Christmas day also. Instead, I was sitting in front of a toasty fire, drinking a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows, and watching the news, waiting for a weather update.

The anchorman did a story about a warehouse burning down earlier in the day. I was relieved to discover that no one had been hurt, although a number of stray cats had been seen fleeing into the driving snow. The weather update came on and the weatherman joked about cold kitties being out there for the next few days, but that the worst of the blizzard should blow through by Christmas night.

Rudolphs nose would have to glow extra bright for Santa to make it through that storm.

I could hear the wind beating the shutters against the sides of the church, whistling through the bell tower; the sound echoed throughout the sanctuary. The apartment my dear wife and I had shared for so long (the Lord took her three summers past) was built into the back of the church and the walls separating it from the church proper were thin, and some strange quirk in the architecture led to sounds being made in the church getting amplified by the time they propagated to my living room.

It was lucky for one little fire survivor that this was the case, or I never would have heard him.

I had nearly finished my chocolate and had shut off the TV so I could simply sit and stare into the flames when I heard a scratching at the sanctuary door and the hint of a weak meow.

I thought of the cats from the warehouse fire immediately, and I got up and proceeded to the double doors that led directly into the back of the church.

It was quite a walk from my living roommy church is a big, rambling, old country affair, but Im not so old as to have required more than half a minute to open the door.

A gust of wind blew through the opening, and with it rolled in a snowball, I thought. Then it stood up and meowed most vigorously, and I realized I was in the presence of a perfectly white kitten. I picked him up and he didnt protest, and cuddled up against my sweater. Im going to call you Snowball, I think, I told him, and when I set him down in front of the fire he lay so close to the blaze that I feared he might melt.

I went to the kitchen briefly to get my guest a saucer of milk, and while there I prepared myself another hot chocolate. I warmed the milk first in the microwave. When I put it in front of Snowball he gulped it down most thankfully.

Settling back into my chair, I thanked the Lord for company that night. I had been lonely, I realized, now that I had a new friend to share the evening with. Christmas time is tough on those who have lost a mate, and my children are far flungdaughter is working at the new Moon base, Im proud to say, and son is somewhere in the Australian Outback searching for a lost city.

Snowball finished lapping up his milk, then he turned to me and fairly bounded right onto my lap. Well, youre certainly not a shy fellow, I quipped. He seemed mighty interested in my cup of chocolate, so I allowed him to peer over the brim. He fished out one of the marshmallows and had it in his mouth faster than I could say Jack Robinson.

Taking the hint, I led him into the kitchen and warmed up a dish of leftovers for him, making sure I added a few marshmallows as a side dish.

We returned to the fire and when Snowball finished eating, he returned to my lap and promptly fell asleep. I allowed him the pleasure for an hour then carefully placed him on a pillow at the foot of my bed and retired for the evening myself.

I awoke to a room with drab winter light coming in from the windows, and momentarily feared that Id overslept. It was Christmas morning and I had a church service to

But then I recalled the blizzard and that I had deliberately not set my alarm for six, and so took my time easing my creaky old body out of bed. At seventy I was old enough to retire from the ministry, but with my wife gone, there really wasnt anything else for me to do.

I also recalled the arrival of Snowball, but a careful look around failed to turn him up. I called, Snowball! Snowball! but I had only named him last night, and he would not have known I was calling for him.

I didnt worry about it. Mine is a large church building with a thousand hiding places for one so small as Snowball, and no doubt he would come around again when he was hungry.

Out the window, though the blizzard had subsided considerably, the wind still piled snow across the church parking lot and the street. I had no doubt that I would not be driving anywhere for several days.

I was wondering what I was going to do with myself, alone this Christmas morn, when I heard a noise.

The church is old, and it creaks more than I do, and it has a small but vigorous rat population in the basement, so hearing odd sounds is not uncommon. But I had lived there a good many years, and I knew my building s little quirks, and this noise was different.

It was a long series of delicate, padded thumps, like something light and springy was bouncing around. Of course, it must be Snowball, I suddenly realized.

Since the sound was coming from upstairs, I slowly walked up the steps to the balcony, careful to continue listening to the thumps so that I could better zero in on the origin of the sounds when I reached the second floor.

The sounds continued, then were joined by a single, louder thump. Silence followed briefly, then the sounds returned, but by then I had narrowed my search to the few rooms within the bell tower.

The first door I came to was the custodian closet. I opened it simply to be thorough and an ancient dust mop fell out sending up a plume that caused me to sneeze.

By the time I reached the second room the thumping had ceased. Nevertheless, I entered the room and enjoyed the memories that came flooding back, for this room had once been my Sunday school, and the old desks were still arranged in neat rows. My congregation only had a few children now, and the class was conducted on the main floor, but I remembered days when I had to teach two sections of Sunday school, and both times all the desks were filled.

I backed out of the room finally, still not having found Snowball, and was just about to open the last room when I felt a gentle bumping against my legs.

Snowball! So there you are, I said. He was covered with dust and looked almost gray. I noticed that the dust was wet. I hoped the roof wasnt leaking againthat melted snow hadnt formed a pool somewhere above the ceiling.

The sounds had stopped with the reappearance of Snowball, so I returned downstairs with him scampering along behind.

Christmas night went much the way the previous evening had, although I did receive a delightful call of precisely three minutes duration from my Moon-dwelling daughter. We wished each other well and a Merry Christmas before her time ran out.

At half past eight, Snowball, who had been asleep beside the fire, awoke, stretched, seemed to glance at the clock, then ran to me and playfully attacked my slipper. I laughed and pushed him gently away, but he was persistent and in a show of surprising strength for a kitten, pulled my slipper from my foot and made off with it. He stopped and waited for me to pursue. I obliged.

Snowball proved to be a worthy opponent in this game. He would lure me to him, then duck under the chair and emerge from the back, trot along the wall, then taunt me from the hassock. I have earlier said that Snowball was a kitten, and indeed, he was the size of a kitten. But there was none of the tentativeness of kitten play about him; none of the awkwardness of fluffy feline youth. I wondered if perhaps he were really some kind of midget adult.