Once upon a time, Sam and I had a cat. Her name was Sookie, and she was only a kitten. The decision to adopt her was easy; it only took this:
She was a good kitten, sleeping most of the time, getting up only to eat, pee, and poop. On good days, she would chase a laser dot around the floor for a few minutes. Then she would hop back on the couch, curl up on her matching furry blanket, and fall asleep. We were thankful that she had no interest in tearing up our furniture, eating our plants, or getting into trouble at night while we were asleep.
After a few days, we started realizing that she had no interest in doing much of anything, certainly nothing that would indicate she was even a kitten in the first place. She slept more, ate less, lost weight, and breathed heavily.
A few days after that, we took her to the vet, where we received a positive test result for feline infectious peritonitis, fatal and incurable. She was only a kitten, lived with us for less than two weeks.
Because the building we lived in did not allow cats, we did not want to have the neighbors see us with a cat carrier. So we took her to the vet that night in an unmarked cardboard box, and we left with an empty one, like there never was or should have been an animal in there at all. I cried so hard.
Last night, Sam showed me a picture of an available puppy at the shelter. She was very cute, but my instinctive answer was no. He has periodically gone to the shelter on his own to look at other dogs and cats since Sookie, and I have always said no. I had justifiable reasons: let's wait until we move; let's wait until we settle in; let's wait until the construction is done.
This morning, as I biked to work, I realized that I've run out of reasons save one: let's wait until I am no longer afraid to adopt another pet and have to subsequently euthanize her.
Further, Sookie, without any effort or knowledge of doing so, made a family out of me and Sam. Sounds ridiculous, and I'm embarrassed to say so, but with Sookie sleeping on the couch between us as we watched TV, I felt like we were more than what we were before.
So following that logic, then, what did we become after, when that space on the couch suddenly sat empty?
It took me weeks to feel normal, to feel the crisis of identity, my own and the collective one I shared with Sam, ease. I don't imagine he analyzed this incident to the depths that I did. He felt sad for a while, got over it, and was ready to try again.
I think I might be too, now.
In a way, I've been waiting for the right time, when we are all settled in to our house and have prepared ourselves for the responsibility of another pet. But like I've always said about me and children, there will never be the right time, and probably the only way it would ever happen is if it just happened to me.
I haven't wanted to look at this photo of Sookie since she died. I have a tendency to anthropomorphize animals, so seeing her big, round eyes now, the sadness behind them, makes me feel like she knew more than she let on. Maybe she was already sick at the time. Maybe she knew that she would be loved by us so much that she would never want to leave.
Sookie helped us reach new heights in our ability to love. But as with heights, there comes a fear of falling, the dizzying plunge that awaits with one misstep. I'm glad Sam, probably without even realizing it, is eager to take this chance. I would never be ready otherwise.
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