{"chapter_no":"41","chapter_title":"The Missing Kitten Chow","book_id":"3","book_name":"Springville","subchapter_no":"0","page_no":"577","page_number":"1","verses_count":0,"total_pages":5,"page_content":"

 <\/p>

Chapter 41<\/p>

The Missing Kitten Chow<\/h1><\/p>

 <\/p>

The pains of hunger and thirst experienced by a small kitten when there is no food or water—
Suffering on earth is universal among both man and beast—The law of consecration is given that all men
might have hope.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

Later that fall after settling in to their new home, Grant and Carolyn made plans to do
short trips around Utah and the surrounding states. Having been away from Utah for many years,
and having already traveled extensively in Europe, they looked forward to visiting places closer
to home. Carolyn’s goal of doing endowments in each of the twenty-some Latter-day Saint
temples of the western United States could also be accomplished in this way, and it was
something Grant happily embraced.<\/p>

 <\/p>

One of the first of these trips was to Boise. Leaving home at noon on a Thursday, they
arrived at the hotel late in the day after several hours of driving. The first site to see on the trip
was the temple. Arising at 6:30 the next morning, they attended an early session. This
accomplished, they had breakfast in town and then explored Boise and the surrounding area for
the rest of the day. The following morning, they visited friends in the area, ate lunch at a fine
local restaurant, did a little more sightseeing for a few hours, then headed back home. They
arrived back in Springville late Saturday night at 10:30.<\/p>

 <\/p>

It is here that we will now make mention of the family pet and what happened in their
home while they were away. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Not many days after moving in, Carolyn adopted a small brown-haired kitten. Friends of
theirs had had a new litter of five, but they decided to keep only two of these, so three little
kittens needed new homes. Carolyn’s fascination with and love for animals has already been
demonstrated, so the reader will not be surprised that she was quite willing to take one of these
and make for it a new home. <\/p>

 <\/p>

The tiny kitten, a male she named Coco, took to his new home right way. Taking great
care of her new friend, Carolyn fixed a little box for him to sleep in, bought some catnip toys and
other playthings for him from a local pet store, and set up a place near the front door for his food
and water.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Whereas their travels sometimes took them away from home for days at a time, and
sometimes even longer than that, there was a need for someone to feed and look in on their pet <\/p>

when they were away. Darrin, a teenage boy who lived on the same block, was perfect for that
role. He was dependable (under his parent’s supervision) and was someone they knew and
trusted. They had hired him already to cut the lawn every week, and he had also helped Grant
with other small chores around the house. Once winter came, the plan was to also hire him to
shovel their driveway and sidewalks. He was a good, conscientious boy, and they paid him well.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Darrin had already taken care of Coco and their house two weeks before during their trip
to Manti. He had looked in on Coco and fed him, turned on the outside lights at night, picked up
the newspapers every morning, and brought in the mail, which he left for them on the kitchen
table. <\/p>

 <\/p>

As for the trip to Boise, however, there had been a slight mix-up in communication.
Darrin had thought when she said “Thursday” that she meant the Thursday of the following
week. How the misunderstanding occurred is not exactly clear, but the result was that Coco had
no one to care for him while they were away. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Coco had grown fast in recent weeks, and he ate his food almost as quickly as it was
served. Before leaving, Carolyn had left plenty of food in his plastic meal dish, but Coco happily
gobbled all of that up that same afternoon. Coco’s thinking was always, \"the more you eat, the
more you get.\"<\/p>

 <\/p>

Several hours later, around 10:00 PM, Coco became hungry again and a little restless. He
longed for Carolyn to come through the door and be present again in the house, confident that
she would immediately fill the cat dish with food for him as always. She was also very nice
company and could be counted on for fun activities at times.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Coco jumped up onto the kitchen table and then from there to the windowsill, repeating
this same hop to hop several times during the night to check for activity outside. Unfortunately,
nothing was stirring. <\/p>

 <\/p>

The next morning at around 7:30, he made another check at the windowsill, but the
circumstances outside the house had not changed. No “people” had arrived and, in particular,
neither Carolyn nor Grant whom he knew so well. There had been some sounds of activity
outside in the last hour, but nothing close by to the house. Coco was really hungry now and
didn’t understand what was going on. Returning to his cat dish, he licked up all the remaining
water, then checked the other side again—sometimes food magically appeared there when he
was away for a while. It was still empty.<\/p>

 <\/p>

More hours passed, but the house remained quiet. Waiting on the rug near the front door,
he meowed loudly and scratched at the door. It was his thinking that maybe somebody might
pass by on the outside, hear him meow, and then come and enter through the door. But there was
no response. The distance of the door from the sidewalk, the containment of sound by the door
and walls, and the outside noises of the neighborhood made Coco’s meows of distress impossible
to hear for anyone who happened to have been passing by.<\/p>

At 2:30 that afternoon, now even more thirsty than hungry, Coco took matters into his
own hands. Jumping up onto the counter via the kitchen table, he slowly trotted over to the sink.
A little water had dripped out from the tap and was visible in the drain below. He licked that up.
While there, he smelled traces of food present in the upper cupboards. He pried open the door of
one of these that was within reach and then crawled up inside—his paw first, his head second,
and then an awkward jump and squeeze move as the cupboard door was closing. Inside, he found
many interesting things, but one item caught his immediate attention—a small, folded-up plastic
bag of corn chips. Tearing open the bag took some doing, but after a few attempts he was able to
fight his way inside. The bag being opened, he licked first, then crunched down the few chips
that were there. If only there were more. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Eating the chips, unfortunately, only served to rouse his stomach, making him even
hungrier than before. Working through the rest of the cabinets the same way, the ones he could
reach, he searched for other such food items that he could break open and eat. He had already
tried breaking into the lower kitchen cabinet where the kitten chow bag had once been stored.
But he had checked that place routinely many times before in the prior weeks, and twice more
earlier that morning. To avoid him getting into it, Carolyn had moved it to another place... where,
he didn’t know.<\/p>

 <\/p>

As more hours passed, the circumstances became somewhat dire for Coco. He licked up
the few drops of water available in the bath tub, and a few more from the other water basins in
the house, but that was the last of the water. He was extremely thirsty. Returning to the front
door, long chants of meows proceeded from his mouth. But just as before, there was no reaction.
After a while, the meows stopped. <\/p>

 <\/p>

It was another long night. He slept in short amounts on the rug next to the front door,
waking at every small sound outside. Coco had the faith and innocence of a small child, and was
therefore a little confused as to why there was no food or water—a situation that had never
presented itself before. He was confused, but not upset. Such is the innocence and good nature of
all animals, particularly a young kitten like Coco; he never doubted that someone would come to
take care of him. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Nevertheless, he was hungry, thirsty, and very sad. He longed for water. He longed for
the delicious kitten chow to be crunching around in his teeth over and over, filling his tiny
stomach with needed food and nourishment. <\/p>

 <\/p>

After many hours, morning finally came, offering the hope of activity outside. But again,
there was no change. The day went slowly; thirst and hunger pains grew more intense hour by
hour. Time passes slowly for one who is suffering. Coco repeated hops to the windowsill, the
kitchen counter, the cupboards, and the water basins, hoping for any new developments. The
afternoon came, and then evening came. Coco, lacking energy and feeling tired, fell asleep again
on the rug.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Suddenly, now late at night, there were sounds outside very close to the house. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Car noises!<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Coco’s heart pumped wildly. Finally! He meowed wildly and with all the energy he could
muster. <\/p>

 <\/p>

In a few moments, there were sounds of people close by, walking and talking. <\/p>

 <\/p>

People! <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

He heard a voice outside and recognized it. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Carolyn! <\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

There was the sound of a key in the door. The door opened, and they were home! <\/p>

 <\/p>

Coco’s faith was rewarded. Surely, there was no happier kitten in all the world at this
moment!<\/p>

 <\/p>

Carolyn had heard the emotionally strong meows as she approached the front door and
sensed something was wrong. This was confirmed further when she walked through the door and
saw the small mess and disorder of things in the kitchen, quite different from how she had left it
days before. Her heart stopped in shock almost as quickly as Coco’s had started pumping with
excitement. Cupboards were opened, a bag of potato chips was torn open with the resulting mess
on the floor, the paper towel roll was unspooled on the floor, several sheets rolled out and torn, a
few small food packages and cans had fallen from the cupboard onto the kitchen counter, and
one had fallen to the floor. The mess was manageable and easy to clean up, but it told the story
well––a hungry three-month-old kitten had been desperately searching for food.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Carolyn then witnessed a scene that would haunt her for the rest of her life. She looked
down and saw Coco scratching his paw back and forth slowly on the rug next to the empty cat
dish, saying to her in effect “the kitten chow is missing.” It was among the saddest and most
sobering moments of her life. A little beast had gone hungry and thirsty for days because of her,
reminding her of the stewardship she had in life to serve others, including those like Coco who
were directly under her care. It also presented to her eyes a stark vision of the need for the law of
consecration. She had a personal responsibility in life to get involved in the world and do
something. The suffering of Coco was a mirror image of the suffering experienced every day by
many other animals, both in society and in the wild. That was sad enough already. But the
suffering of animals was a mirror image of the great suffering among all mankind—the vast
populations of the poor and needy that exist throughout the world. She saw all of this in an
instant as Coco’s eyes looked up at her, and as he scratched his paw in a plea for food and water.
Coco epitomized the suffering of the world, and it was universal among man and beast.<\/p>

 <\/p>

The joy of eating was quickly restored to the little cat. Carolyn pulled out the sack of
kitten chow from an upper cupboard (Coco carefully noted its location this time, although it was
clearly out of reach), filled the tray to overflowing, and then added lots of water to the plastic
side dish. Coco ate fast and furiously, switching positions once or twice to lick through the water
with his tongue. He ate all he could, leaving only a few bites he would come back to and finish <\/p>

off later. Happy again, and holding no grudge, he watched the cleanup effort that was going on.
Carolyn saw him and quickly stooped to pick him up, holding him closely in her arms and
engaging in the sort of small talk a mother often has with a little baby. Order to the home had
been reestablished! <\/p>

 <\/p>

We cannot understate how deeply Carolyn was impacted by this event. She thought about
it often in the days and weeks that followed. She had failed in her role as a primary caregiver and
as the one accountable for the animal’s needs. The thought of her little Coco going without food
and water for more than two days and being locked inside the house, unable to do anything to
help himself, was terribly sad. There had been plenty of kitten chow sitting in the cupboard, and
gallons upon gallons of fresh water available for anyone in the house to drink, but Coco went
hungry and thirsty nonetheless. <\/p>

 <\/p>

The lesson for us is clear. The stocks of unused kitten chow are like the great riches of
Latter-day Saints living in Utah, the riches we hold in our hands and over which we have
stewardship. Much of what we have been given in life sits idly by while many in the world, and
even some in our communities, worry, suffer, are sick, or even die because of needs not being
met—needs for food, needs for clean water, needs for shelter, needs for good medical and dental
care, needs for education and training, needs for jobs, everyday needs of single mothers and their
children, needs for greater security in high-crime neighborhoods, needs of freedom and stable
governments among whole peoples of the earth, and so forth. <\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

But more than anything, the poor and the needy of the world need hope—hope for today
and hope for tomorrow. The law of consecration is given that all men might have hope<\/span>.<\/p>"}