What they teach us

My dad told me this: People without kids can be a little weird, but people who don’t even have animals, they are the strangest.

We were talking about people who didn’t understand how kids and young adults act because they don’t see these interactions on a daily basis. Same with people who don’t have animals. There are so many things that these people are missing.

I grew up with various different animals in my house: anoles, bulgy-eyed fish, toads, frogs, guinea pigs, cats and a dog. I loved them all. I cried when my parents decided our dog, Bert, was too big, too much work and we gave him away. My outdoor cat, Apricat, adopted me one day while I was playing on my swing set among the apricot trees. I really wanted a pig and a tarantula, but my mom said no. I wanted to be a veterinarian at the age of five, or maybe even younger than that. Someone told me that I should go to Colorado State University because that is where they trained veterinarians. That’s the only school I planned on going to until high school when I considered going to Cornell University because they had a vet school too. I ended up at CSU, but my focus shifted to writing.

I always associated better with animals. The interactions of humans were confusing to me, especially when I started school. I had very few friends growing up, and even fewer close ones. But I knew all the dogs in the neighborhoods I passed through on my way to and from school.

My parents had two cats when I was born. I got my cat, Shushi, when I was about eight after the older cat had died. She was a tiny ball of fur, the runt of her litter, but a tough little thing. Black except for a white streak that ran from her face, down her stomach and spidering out to her paws. I loved to caress the downy, distinctly kitten fur that stuck out in different lengths and the softest part just behind her ears. She loved to curl up in my lap, the size of a stress ball. I named her after a feisty kitten in a book I read just before she came to live with us.

I’m always astounded by people who say cats have no personalities.

Shushi loved cheese and ice cream. She loved to hunt little stuffed mice toys, crying out in a terrifying yowl whenever she carried one to me on the couch. “See what a good hunter I am?” She seemed to say. “I have brought you evidence of my hunting prowess.” On cold winter days, she could be found curled up on bed in the sun or in my lap, wherever I happened to be. In the summer, she sprawled on the tiles in the bathroom or in front of one of the doors. During the school year, she waited by the door to greet me upon my arrival, meowing and rubbing up against my legs. If I was home, she was by my side.
When I went off to college, my mom says she seemed lonely, not sure where I had gone and if I would come home. I had left a sweatshirt on my bed; she covered it in fur from laying on it, perhaps drinking in my scent.

Animals feel. This is something I hear on pretty much every episode of the show Animal Cops. Animals feel pain. They feel love. They feel loss. They just have no words for us to understand.

For several years, I resisted getting another cat, even when Shushi was still alive. I got a guinea pig, Weiss, when I lived in LA, so I could have a pet, but not feel like I was replacing Shushi. Weiss’ little squeels in the morning livened the apartment. She makes sure you do not forget she is there and hungry. She coos when she eats her carrots and peppers. Her eyes close in pleasure when you rub her nose.

My dad called me when I was about to board a plane back to Colorado to tell me Shushi was gone. Three years later, it’s still strange to go home and see only my sister’s cat, who is getting old herself.

A friend of mine and her mom recently lost both of their cats. Before it happened, the older cat had not been doing well. We were talking about the possibility of having to put the cat to sleep and I said, while it is sad, it’s good that she can be there and say goodbye, the chance I didn’t have. We owe it to our pets to keep them from pain. She said when she got the cat all those years ago, she didn’t think it all the way through, that eventually she would have to say goodbye to her furry friend.

My husband loves animals as much as I do. And still, I resisted getting another pet. We live in a small apartment. He has allergies. I refuse to have a dog with no yard to run in. I want our animals to have space. But really, the reason was I wasn’t sure if I could love another animal, another cat, that wasn’t Shushi.

A few months ago, my husband texted me a photo of a cat in the animal shelter by his work. She had a little pink nose, the pointed face and slightly crossed blue eyes of a Siamese mix. Her name was Lily and I had to have her.

Lily loves to lay in the window sill in our bedroom and soak in the late afternoon sun that pours through our sliding glass porch door. She is glad to help you finish your yogurt. When you get home, she will tell you everything that is on her mind. She wants to be near you, but not in your lap. She, like any other cat or dog I know, loves chin scratches. Her favorite toy is an orange stress ball that she found behind my desk. I’ve learned that I can’t compare her to Shushi. I have to take her for who she is, the little love bug who sleeps between us at night and purrs.

And as much as we want our pets to stay forever, we know it can’t be so. This is what they teach us, if we only pay attention: to love while there is time. To play. To live and value the little things, like a purr and a squeeze of the eyes. The satisfied look on a toad as he catches a cricket with his tongue. The joy of a lolling tongue while chasing a toy in the sun or the rain or the snow.