We are wise, I think, to be wary of interpreting our cats' messages as if they came from a human. "She thinks she's a person" is a cute thing to say about a cat, but it's also an easy way to lose the very special wonder of establishing a connection with another, decidedly nonhuman, species. Reaching out to our cats takes us outside ourselves in a way that opens up our minds and our hearts. But in our wisdom and our wariness about thinking of our cats as human, we sometimes ignore our intuition and limit the ways we are willing to understand the creatures in our midst. We don't trust what we know in our hearts to be true. So, for example, we want to believe our cats love us, but somehow, despite all the evidence of our lives with them, we're not sure if it's really true. If only they could say the words!
Until very recently, it was "accepted wisdom" among scientists that animals don't feel any emotions at all—not even love. Scientists came to this conclusion because the animals they studied had never described or shown their emotions in a way that the scientists could quantify in an experiment. But just because you can't study something scientifically doesn't mean it's not real.
One strange and sad result of this "accepted wisdom" was a conversation I had with a friend who is a school science teacher. She told me, "Whenever I sit down on the couch, my cat always sits right next to me and presses her head into my hands until I pet her. I know it's really all about food and my cat doesn't actually love me. But it's still so nice when she snuggles up with me, and I just tell myself it seems like love."
I said, "If it seems like love, why do you think it isn't?" But what I was really thinking was, How could any person live with a cat and think she doesn't feel fear, humor, excitement, grief, pleasure, and, most of all, love? There's no question that mealtimes are among the highlights of any cat's day, but so are play times, snuggle times, and purr times. How could every single friendly interaction we have with our cats be a bribe for food? Nobody wants to believe that. And so we wish that on Christmas Eve the animals would tell us, "You were right all along. Our love is the real thing."
In fact, they do tell us, if only we would trust our hearts. I know their love is real, and so do you.
How do I know? You might as well ask me how I know my husband loves me. I know because of the way he treats me, the way he looks at me, the way he seeks out my company and never seems to get bored with me, even after all these years. I know because things are more fun for both of us when he's around, because dire problems don't seem so dire when we're together, because he takes extra good care of me when I'm sick or just feeling low, because he puts me at the center of his life. He doesn't say "I love you" every day, but every day I know he does.
In their own way, my cats also do all of these things. They follow me from room to room—even pushing their way into the bathroom to be with me. They're not always right next to me, but they're usually nearby. When I sit down on the couch, they sometimes wrestle to decide who gets to sit next to me. If I'm in another room and they call to me, they keep calling until I answer. When I'm sick, they spend more time napping with me. When I'm sad, they snuggle up extra close. They would always rather play with me than with each other, and they make up games and then teach me the rules. They bring me their little mousey prey toys as gifts, dropping them at my feet and looking up at me with devotion. They run to my side when I call them—just for the reward of a hug. They purr when I look into their eyes and say their names. I know they love me because they act like they love me. That's how every creature on earth, human or animals, shows their love. It's how my cats know I love them.
You don't have to wait for Christmas. The miracle is already here, snuggled up next to you. Sometimes it's hard for us to trust the experience of our own lives and hearts. But when we observe our cats closely, with an open mind and an open heart, we see the richness of their emotional and their spiritual lives. We see it in the way they act. We see it in their faces. We see it in their eyes. When you do, trust what you see and feel. You know it's the real thing.
Bengal Turkey Divine
Miriam Fields-Babineau
As I sat down to Christmas Eve dinner, prepared by my gourmet chef husband, the phone rang.
Not the normal ting-a-ling I would receive when being called by a client, but the Dragnet intro that signaled a call from my mother.
How nice, I thought. Mother is calling to wish us a Happy Holiday. No way. Mother didn't celebrate Christmas, nor did she like my husband. She was most probably calling for another reason. She was seventy-three and well into senile dementia, making her difficult to take at times, along with being very accident prone. I knew I had to answer the phone. I pulled out the chair, giving my husband a resigned look, which he returned. I walked to the kitchen phone, followed by my two Bengal cats. Chewy and Sorceress had also been waiting for their holiday meal. (My husband always sneaked a few tidbits to them from the table.) The feast would have to wait.
"Hello," I said, picking up the phone, acting as though I had no idea who the caller was.
"Margo!" exclaimed Mother. "Margo. Help!"
I stiffened. Something had happened after all. Then again, she often did this just to get me to visit her. Her life, and thereby mine whenever I communicated with her, was total chaos.
"Yes, Mother," I answered. "What's up?"
Mother sighed, then whimpered.
Sometimes she could put on a real act. She knew how to get to me.
"Are you okay?" I asked. "Are you sick?"
"Oh no, Margo. He's gone. I don't know where he went." I tilted my head thinking, he, who?
"Mother?"
"Beamer, Margo," she scoffed, now upset with me for being unable to read her mind. "Beamer's gone. He must've run through the door as I was putting the trash out and I didn't see it. I've looked all over the house and I can't find him. Oh, Margo. I can't see out there and he's gone. Just gone!"
Beamer was Mother's Himalayan cat. I had arranged for her to take in a rescued cat from the breeder who had given me my Bengals. After her dog died last year she really needed company and, since she wasn't getting around very well, cats would be easier to care for while offering companionship. Hence came Beamer. Beamer was two years old and very shy. There was no way someone could walk right up to him. The only person he ever wanted to spend time with was Mother, sitting on her lap while she wrote on her computer.
"I'm so sorry, Mother. You think he might turn up in a bit? He's never been out before and is probably frightened. He might be at the door this very minute."
"Margo," her voice lowered. I could picture the look on her face—jaw set, eyes narrowed, mouth tight. "I'm looking out the door this very minute and he's not there. You need to come here and help me find him. He's going to disappear just like the other cats around here."
"What other cats?"
"Nancy Hanover's Persian, Fooey. And, Missy Hendridge's cat, Cocoa. Her daughter is still in tears over it. Then, there's Sibyl's cat, Moonie. Why, she's been gone over a month. I've never seen Sibyl so depressed. I've heard rumors from other neighbors about how it's like an epidemic. Even cats that are always indoors are disappearing. They haven't been found dead in the road, or picked up by animal control. Just vanished."
Mother was panicking and would surely collapse if she kept it up. Though her health hadn't been the best lately, she still continued to work and remain involved in many activities. Mother was never someone who would slow herself down. Worse yet, her eyesight was really bad. She could hardly recognize a person directly in front of her, much less a cat. At night she was totally blind. There was no way she could go outside and search for Beamer.