Saturday, June 25, 2005
Love (a post about Nippy the cat)
We talk about love a lot at home - I say "I love you" to D'Arcy, he says "I love you" to me and we say it when we talk on the phone, but what he often talks about is how much he loves and misses Nippy. Nippy lives with D'Arcy's dad, although she lived with me before we got married. She is probably 17 years old, she was an adult cat when she came to live with me in 1990, and D'Arcy adores her. So, when I dropped him off to his Dad last time, we both took lots of photos of her, so that we can print some and he can look at them when he is at my house.
So what is it that he loves so much about her? Is it the unconditional love of an animal? It's not that she is safer than people - the saddest he can get is if she bites or scratches him, and she still does it if he pushes her too far. But there is something there. She has huge yellow eyes that penetrate your soul, and perhaps he sees that. When I was pregnant with him, having had no experience with being a mother, all my anxiety dreams about the coming baby transmogrified into dreams about the cat - in all those dreams she was my baby. I miss her too, and I dearly wish she could live with me. When I saw her last she was miaowing a lot, and I said to her "Nippy, you're very squeaky today" and D'Arcy said "That's because she is a cat". The wisdom of a four-year old.
One time when he first started crawling, he was so excited because he could finally follow her around, but when he did follow her and grabbed hold, she responded with a big scratch. On the face. Across his eyelid, which he managed to close.
When he first started talking, one of the first words he used was "bao" which was the one he assigned to Nippy. This morphed to "Hippy" some months later and then to "Mippy" until he managed to master the 'n' consonant later.
I hope that she will come to live with me in another house in the future, but I know that the likelihood is small; she is old, she doesn't like change, she is happy where she is, and despite her unpleasant habit (she pisses on things when she feels insecure) D'Arcy's dad is fond of her...So while I feel like I have a cat, I really don't see her much. I love you Nippy.
So what is it that he loves so much about her? Is it the unconditional love of an animal? It's not that she is safer than people - the saddest he can get is if she bites or scratches him, and she still does it if he pushes her too far. But there is something there. She has huge yellow eyes that penetrate your soul, and perhaps he sees that. When I was pregnant with him, having had no experience with being a mother, all my anxiety dreams about the coming baby transmogrified into dreams about the cat - in all those dreams she was my baby. I miss her too, and I dearly wish she could live with me. When I saw her last she was miaowing a lot, and I said to her "Nippy, you're very squeaky today" and D'Arcy said "That's because she is a cat". The wisdom of a four-year old.
One time when he first started crawling, he was so excited because he could finally follow her around, but when he did follow her and grabbed hold, she responded with a big scratch. On the face. Across his eyelid, which he managed to close.
When he first started talking, one of the first words he used was "bao" which was the one he assigned to Nippy. This morphed to "Hippy" some months later and then to "Mippy" until he managed to master the 'n' consonant later.
I hope that she will come to live with me in another house in the future, but I know that the likelihood is small; she is old, she doesn't like change, she is happy where she is, and despite her unpleasant habit (she pisses on things when she feels insecure) D'Arcy's dad is fond of her...So while I feel like I have a cat, I really don't see her much. I love you Nippy.
# posted by Mummy/Crit : 10:04 PM
