Living With Cats, By Necessity

MY SISTER SAYS that she cannot imagine living her life without cats. I can, but barely. Odds areIwillnever again bewithout at least one cat, despite the attendant expense, frustrations, and emotional agony they greatest of which far, obviously, transpies when tehy die. Cats are extremely mortal, afflicted by all manner of diseases, with nervous systems whichi evolved too early to accomodate modern humanity, its machines and vehicles. I worry about my outdoor cats becase thay are outside, with the cars and dangerous animals, including human beings. I feel as if I have imprisoned my indoor cats, am preventing them from living a full, natural life. I have decided that any future cats of "mine" will have access to boh outdoors and indoors, risks included, risks and limitations be damned. However, as every cat caregiver knows, whatever plans you make for your cats are subject to change. Like coach Mike Ditka said: you can make whatever plan you want, bu you'd better be ready to change it. As cat people age, tehy look back with pensive fondness at all the cats they have loved, all the cats that have passed. There is not a softer, better word for "died". Cat or human, we never cease grieving for our beloved who have preceeded us in death. We love our dogs and cats in the United States of Alienation. more than we love other people, including our human family members, and we insist on the obvious, that our dogs and cats are our family. We tend to consider stry cats a tragedy, lonely, abandoned, bereft of human love. But do we really know for sure that spending a lifetime without human companionship or interaction is really such a terrible thing? If it is, why do so many humans spend a lifetime avoiding it as much as humanly possible? Mistakenly, we anthropommorphize, project our human feelings onto cats. Give a cat a food source and a territory over which to roam and rule, and chances are the average cat knows contentment. Longing for human companionship might be something that only human beings, with human hubris, imagine that cats and dogs actually do. What they doubtless long for is a food source and a sense of safety and security. In Islamic society, which regards cats as angels of God, stray cats are a blessing to all, and cared for by everyone. The last time I pointed out that Islamic people treat cats much better than Christians, I got in trouble at my local heavily Penteostal senior center, a place full of dogmatic small minded prigs. I call that "good trouble", and it doesn't bother me a bit. If they think they can find a better tenor for their gospel choir, fine. (They can't). We as a species much need to reevaluate our relationship to nature, animals included, and we need to humble ourselves, not a little, but a lot. We are perfectly free o consider ourelves somehow "superior" to all other lifeforms on this planet, which does not belong to us as we like to think, while other species, including insects, are perfectly free to evolve long before we did, and to remain long after we have rendered ourselves extinct. Our nobility and worth are determined by how we treat ourselves, each other, and all other plants and animals with whom we share this plaent, which is owned by God. Up until now, and at this point, we can barely give ourselves a passing grade, since we currently seem to be in the process of destroyng the Earth's ecosystem, and thus, all life on Earth. If we succeed in this insane suicidal enterprise, it would be a pity, the greatest pity of all having little to do with ourselves.