STURGIS, Mich. — If you’re not a cat person … keep reading.
Ron Williams of Sturgis turns 85 in September. Not too long ago, to keep him company, a friend brought him a boy cat named Fluffy.
Over the first few weeks they had together, Ron says he and Fluffy hit it off right away.
“I looked at him and, hey, I just fell in love with him,” said Williams.
Ron talked to Fluffy quite a lot, as we all do with our pets. When Ron got calls on his cellphone, he’d joke around with Fluffy then too.
“The phone would ring, and I would say, ‘Ring-a-ding,’” said Ron. “And I didn’t know he’d pick up on it.”
Then, a few days ago, Ron slipped and fell getting out of the shower. He couldn’t move.
“My arm was pinned under me, and the hours kept going by,” said Ron. “Sixteen hours. ...”
From roughly 8 in the morning until midnight later that day, Ron lay in agony. The door was closed, and his Life Alert was in the other room on the charger. His phone was in the bathroom with him but just out of reach on the counter.
Luckily for Ron, Fluffy was in the room too. And whether or not Ron knew it, he’d been training Fluffy for this moment accidentally.
“So I said, ‘Ring-a-ding, Fluffy. You’re my only hope,’” Ron said, tearing up. “And he was. It wasn’t even five minutes later I felt something hit my hand. And I’m here because of it.”
“I relive it a million times. What if he wouldn’t have been in there with me? I’d be dead today,” he added.
Now Ron, who served with the U.S. Army in Korea, is fine — left only with some soreness and bumps and bruising. Compared to the alternative, he knows he’s lucky.
“He’s my hero, and he always will be,” said Ron. “He’ll never be away from me until the day I die.”
