Animals Make Us Better Humans
My former husband and I adopted two kittens in our mid-thirties. To my surprise, he had pushed for the pet acquisition. Up until then my partner had shown no interest in pets, nor had he grown up with them. He also liked to keep a fastidiously clean home, so I wasn’t sure how we were going to handle the shedding cat hair and litter boxes. I had grown up with pets that I adored, but as I’d become an adult my sensitivity towards animals had dulled. I was not opposed to adopting cats but I did wonder how well they would blend into our pristine environment. I’ll never forget the frigid late December night that we drove up to the north side of Chicago with an empty cat carrier to choose our kittens from their foster home. I didn’t know it at the time, but that night would change my life - in so many ways - for the better.
The boy and girl littermates we brought home were obvious choices; each tuxedo kitten was sweet in its own way, and each spoke to our hearts in different ways. Ranjit, the boy kitty, was pure and unconditional love in a furry body. He loved with an open heart, running to the door to greet us and strangers alike. Though my partner had technically chosen him, Ranjit soon became my kitty. He was always by my side or on my lap, gazing at me with love. I called him my ‘little man in a tux’ and the ‘kitty love of my life’. His sister Reena loved on her own terms. She was nervous and shy, alternately flirtatious and aloof. While Ranjit gave unconditional love, Reena demanded unconditional love. Her nervousness required a patient and loving approach. She would hiss at anyone who took her by surprise, and if pushed beyond her limits, would resort to peeing outside the litter box. It was probably fitting that I called her my ‘little sweetpea’ (though when it happened it was anything but sweet!).
Shortly after we adopted Reena and Ranjit, we all moved to California where my then-husband started a new job. Three years later when we divorced, the cats endured a five-day coast-to-coast drive in a Mini Cooper as I began to navigate my new life as a single person. It was during that time that the reality and responsibility of being a pet caretaker fully sank in. I alone was responsible for their care and well-being, and embracing that responsibility gave me some much-needed stability. Reena and Ranjit became a part of my heart, so integral to my life that they would often appear in my dreams. In some of these dreams, they would accompany me in the outside world, and the focus of my dream would turn to keeping them safe and alive. Reena and Ranjit seemed to love my new home in Chicago from the day we moved in. When I took a year of sabbatical in New Hampshire, they accompanied me there. And when I moved to Colorado several years later, they were again with me - willing, if not completely excited about starting over yet again.
When I met my new husband nine months after moving to Colorado, they both welcomed him into their life. A year later, when he moved in with his younger boy kitty, they were tolerant. Well, Ranjit was at least. He accepted Spartacus with love and patience even though Sparty was bigger, younger, more agile, and dominant. Reena never really accepted Sparty, growling and hissing her complaints daily. When Ranjit - the kitty love of my life - now nearly twenty years old, started to decline quickly last May, we made the painful decision to have a vet visit our home to put him to sleep. It was the hardest day of my life, along with the day that my mother passed away. I have never felt so much love and so much loss in the same moments. Just before the vet arrived, Ranjit connected with each of us, resting one paw on our arm and gazing with love into our eyes as if to say, ‘I’ll always love you.’ His physical absence left a huge whole in our hearts and home. It was difficult for me to fathom that Ranjit had gone first. In the almost twenty years that they had been with me, Reena was the stressed-out one with health issues. Ranjit was so chill and youthful that it seemed he would live forever.
Reena kitty batted on for another nine months, the whole time with a large tumor on her spleen that was visible as she waddled around the house. Despite this affliction her appetite never suffered. She died suddenly in February, on her own terms, clearly ready to go. Again, the loss hit us hard. These precious beings who I had cared for and loved for more than twenty years and who my husband had grown to love with his whole heart were no longer here. I desperately missed them, but in time the sting of grief turned to love and gratitude for our time together.
When I think about who I was before they came into my life and who I became after they chose me, I am astounded and humbled by the power of love that human-animal connections bring. Animals have a unique capacity to love unconditionally (Ranjit) and also to accept unconditional love (Reena) - and the unconditional love we exchange with animals can feel a lot easier than trying to love humans in the same way. I used to worry that my love for my cats was excessive, that it would eclipse the love I should be feeling for the humans in my life. But I have come to realize that animals increase our capacity to love with open hearts, and that is always a good thing. The more open our hearts are to love, the more we can love, period. The wider our hearts grow with the love for our pets, the more we can try to bring this love to the people around us, even if we aren’t always successful. It’s easy now for me to access the love I feel (still) for Reena and Ranjit. I know it’s good for me, for my heart and mind, and for others around me when I am in touch with it. And I know that one day I’ll welcome another furry being into my heart and it will grow even wider.