My cat Leia has never known fear. No, wait; this is not a heroic pet story. There is nothing remarkable about Leia. She hasn’t saved my life by waking me a moment before the earthquake brought the roof down on my bed, or walked five hundred miles home alone through a dozen blizzards. The only unusual thing about her is the smudgy black fur under her nose, which mars her otherwise pretty calico coloring. “Hey, a Hitler moustache,” every new person says, laughing. (“We prefer Charlie Chaplin,” we wince.) She’s not bad at hunting insects but I doubt she could fend for herself in the wild. She’s never even brought down a mouse as far as we know, although she made a good run at a chipmunk once.
But she has no fear. This is the remarkable part. She sprawls across my lap, warm and squirmed down into my fuzzy robe, her chin to the ceiling, her soft paws pulled in to eyes closed in ecstasy, purring and purring and purring. She has not a single worry, or any notion that this will not go on forever. While she treats a few moments as eternity, I wonder: Why is she in my life? Why am I so pleased to have this ball of vibrating fluff cuddling with me here, cutting off the circulation to my feet?
There are supposed to be many good reasons to own a pet. People say they provide companionship, but that assumes you consider a ball of vibrating fluff to be companionable. People say they provide unconditional love, but let’s face it, that must refer to dogs. Scientists say petting an animal lowers your blood pressure. I don’t think I was considering my blood pressure when we stood in the animal shelter, letting the kids choose Leia and her brother Luke. (The kids were in a Star Wars phase.) Kids, of course, are supposed to learn responsibility from caring for a pet, but life gives you a lot of ways of learning responsibility. Balls of vibrating fluff do not have to enter into it, unless you choose it.
So why choose it? I look down at her, in her perfect happiness. Outside in the world there are people like me -- and animals like her -- who are fighting starvation. I try not to think about the cruelty and danger out there, but I can never quite close off that part of my brain. When I am relaxed and happy, as close to her state as I can get, I still have to breathe away dark thoughts that hover somewhere just beyond the warmth, the knowledge of things I wish I didn’t know about. Sometimes my own anxieties grind me, with the worries about an argument this morning or what might happen at work tomorrow. Sometimes it’s the mournful news of suffering endured by others, human and animal, in other places. The planet seems awash in pain. Who can sit peacefully, feeling ready to purr?
Leia doesn’t know this. She does not know it is possible for a food dish to be empty, or for a lap to be less than welcoming. She meets new people with perfect confidence, and a minor curiosity about what they may smell like. She doesn’t know there are members of my species who torture members of her species for entertainment.
“No one will ever hurt you,” I whisper to her, a faint sound that causes one white-tipped ear to swivel in my direction. The astounding thing is that it’s true: I can guarantee it. I can protect her from anything and anyone that might harm her, except for that final illness, whatever it turns out to be, some year in the future. Even then, I can protect her from suffering at the end.
This is more than I can do for myself, of course. It’s even more than I can do for my children. As parents we know that however hyper-vigilant we are, the baby we desperately protect soon enough turns into a child, and the day comes when we have to let the child walk down to the corner alone, or go on that sleep-over, or ride that bus, or join AmeriCorps and move away. In the world we live in, we live with the knowledge that just one drunk behind the wheel of a car can break our child physically. In the world we live in, those who are not worthy to be friends or lovers can break our child emotionally. In our world, the world our children must inhabit with us, there is always fear and danger.
Leia lives in my house but she does not live in my world. In Leia’s world, there is no hunger or terror. She lives in a world of safety and comfort, of sleepy yawning mornings and playful afternoons and peaceful cozy evenings. She lives, in short, in the world I would create if I were God.
As I watch her, she snuggles down more deeply, wrapping a contented tail about herself. I stroke her soft fur, touching as best I can the peace I can only envy. This, I think, is why I want Leia in my life. I can never live in her world. But it comforts me to know I can create it for another living creature.