For I will consider my cat, Tosca

This week I had the agonising experience of pet-owners everywhere. I had to say goodbye to my beloved cat and ask the vet to facilitate euthanasia. The trauma was huge despite her magnificent age (18) and the fact that she had been poorly for a while. What is it about our pets that has the capacity to move us so deeply?

As I sat weeping for her passing, I tried to analyse in a rational way what I would miss, or what I felt I had gained from her presence in my life. Of course there's the immediate comfort of the cuddle and companionship but if that were all, then it would imply our's was a transactional and conditional relationship. And presumably easily fixed by acquiring a new pet, much like replacing any broken inanimate object in one's life – an old torch, armchair or washing-machine. And it really doesn't feel like that.

Which leads me to conclude that she was an individual with a soul and a personality. Not that I mean to anthropomorphise her existence, but in some sort of parallel plane, her existence and life were not dissimilar to mine. She was certainly unique in her behaviours and demands. Maybe nothing exceptional in any one stand-alone characteristic, but as a specific group of attributes, brought together in one sentient being, for one brief span of time, she was unique. And yet, don't we all hold our own pets to be unique and the “most” special? I heard myself telling friends and family how extraordinary she was, attempting to explain that my grief is the greater for the scale of her distinctiveness, all the while knowing that in their hearts, their own cat or dog outranks mine in this respect.

So what do I really mean when I refer to her specialness? Perhaps it was in her eyes. Anyone who has held the gaze of an animal for a long period of time will know that there is a depth to be perceived there, no less than in humans. I felt that I knew her to the depths of her soul and that she knew me. To be physically close to her was to be emotionally comfortable and safe.

What did I admire about her? Only what is to be admired in all sentient beings. Her simplicity taught me so much. Like all cats she slept for long stretches of every day, but she was also happy to sit still for hours, eyes open and observing the world around her, without judgement or intervention. She never once, as far as I could tell, questioned or regretted her existence as a cat but lived entirely and gloriously to her full, feline potential. And how many of us can say the equivalent? Ever proud of her beautiful looks, she preened and strutted her stuff demanding strokes and cuddles from me many times a day. She basked in the sun and showed disdain for the grey days. She made nests in the clean laundry and played dementedly with the catnip toys. She sniffed the flowers and chased the bees and chewed the grass. As a young cat, she got into scrapes getting locked inside other people's homes.

But in the last 10 years of her life, she simply enjoyed the miracle of her own aliveness and mine. That, I now understand, was her ultimate gift to me – she made me see the world and myself through her eyes, and as such the world is perfect and I was the best person in it. And that's the marvel of animals, I realise. They rarely have much say in who will be their owner and yet they almost always come to love and take delight in that person. It's a daily demonstration of how each and every human being is equally beautiful and valuable and potentially loveable. If you set out believing you can love your companion, then most of the time it turns out to be true. And that's not as much of a given as our furry friends assume.

Every one of us knows and meets people whom we don't like and we admit that many find us irritating in return. So why do we not regularly encounter animals that dislike us? Pets don't seem to do that – they mostly don't question you or wonder how they might find someone better. They simply live with you in contentment, giving and taking affection in a pragmatic way, complaining if you are inconsiderate but holding no grudges. You are not objectively any better or worse than any other human on the planet, but you are the human in their life, so they respond to that and recognise the holy in you. It is not a common starting point for theology – though not entirely original either. The wonderful poems “For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry” written by Christopher Smart in 1763 or “Pangur Bán” written by a ninth-century Irish monk are proof that others got there long before me.

But today, it is me and my cat that I ponder. And yes, I see the spark of The Divine both before me and reflected back.


For I will consider my cat Tosca.
Tosca, grey Tosca, how happy we were.

Comments

  1. Anonymous21 August 2017 at 10:43

    Her spirit is still around, Lotti, so you might communicate with raised vibrations...!

    ReplyDelete

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