My husband, Stu, was never overly enthusiastic about the idea of getting a cat.
Discussions about cats usually came to a screeching halt, almost before they began.
The love of a cat is earned, while dogs are much more promiscuous with their emotions, and his family are dog people, unwilling to understand the subtlety of cat love. I get it, but I grew up with all sorts of animals.
We had between two to four dogs and a cat or three, not to mention all the other cling-ons that came with spending my early years on a game reserve in rural Africa.
Our cats were never bought from a breeder or a pet store, they were the kittens of a feral cat who chose to give birth at the end of my sister’s bed during a thunderstorm. We were grateful she chose us as her safe place.
There were also kittens which had been caught in the bush and brought back by the dogs, and there were cats who simply materialised, infiltrating the family, existing among us, bopping our pencils, headbutting our faces, and swatting the dogs as they meandered by.
Wherever we are, the cat is with us
After the devastating and untimely death of our beloved cocker spaniel, Teddy, at the end of 2021, we were determined in our grief to never have another dog.
His passing absolutely broke our hearts but, unable to live in a house without animals, I finally convinced Stu that it was time to get a cat. This cat, I argued, would take on the role of an emotional band-aid, filling the creature-less void in our home.
Naturally, we now have a cat – Simon, who at eight months old is the size of a regular toddler. Most of the time he dutifully ignores us, bending his ear in an attempt to pretend he hasn’t heard me repeatedly calling his name, and yet he’s always with us; wherever we are, he lurks.
He sleeps in Teddy’s old basket by the kitchen door and spends his days hunting flies, terrorising my houseplants and knocking down, in disgust, any receptacle containing liquid. I’m constantly mopping up cold tea, picking up random things off the floor, and replacing the soaking tablecloth.
Before we got Simon, everyone worried about how he would react to my in-laws’ labrador, Charlie, who we look after when they are away – which is quite often. Opinions flew like confetti, because cats and dogs traditionally don’t get on, right? Wrong.
Simon, lord of the flies, champion dog wrestler and house lion, had managed to get under my husband’s skin. I was right
As it happens, Simon and Charlie play together all day, which mostly consists of Simon teetering on the edge of a high spot, ready to launch himself onto Charlie’s back and wrestle him until they fall asleep in a jumble of paws.
Simon softened the edges of grief
So, Simon did his job: he softened the edges of our grief after losing our beloved Teddy. While we were holidaying recently, at the start of the summer, Stu, the reluctant kitty daddy uttered the words: “I miss Simon.”
Not a phrase I thought I would ever hear come out this dog person’s mouth. Simon, lord of the flies, champion dog wrestler and house lion, had managed to get under his skin. I was right. Ha!
In truth, darling Simon’s unexpectedly gentle, beautiful and funny existence in our lives helped to heal an unbearable wound. Then, during the aforementioned holidays, we fell in love with a little cocker spaniel puppy, who is currently sleeping at my feet, the warmth of his tiny body seeping into the sad corners of my heart, making it full to bursting.
Charlie, the giant labrador, Simon, and the new puppy, Roger, play beautifully and sleep together in Teddy’s old basket by the kitchen door.
For a lot of reasons, this is a difficult thing to admit, but Teddy’s death brought with it the opportunity to have and love Simon who healed us enough to consider giving our hearts up once more to the unconditional love which comes from having a dog.
SJ Molver is an author and painter based in the north-east of Scotland
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