animals

I love animals. I love their fur, their tiny teeth, the pads of their paws, and marble eyes. Cats, dogs, mice, deer, ducklings, geese, badgers, squirrels, everything. I like the tiny, furry ones. I have a fantasy of a squirrel sitting on my shoulder while I feed it apple slices. I love holding an animal’s trust, gently in my hands; I’m grateful for it. I love their innocence.

The other day I found a duckling and a gosling who loved each other. The duckling had splayed legs and couldn’t walk, and the gosling was rejected by the adult geese. They stood under the shade of a tree, the gosling hovering over the duckling’s squat body.

I called Eric. He sped over down the county roads and found us in record time. I picked up the duckling with my bare hands. We chased the gosling around for twenty minutes until he finally ran between Eric’s legs and he stooped down to lift him up. We put them in a box lined with an old, frayed towel, laughing, full of adrenaline from holding wild baby birds.

We drove them to my friend’s house, and he took them to a duck sanctuary. I stared at the birds the whole trip over, against my better judgment. I didn’t want them to imprint on me, but they were domestic birds, thankfully, and were meant to be on a farm instead of by a riverbank in Hines Park. They looked so beautiful, their tiny black eyes fluttering closed, falling asleep at every red light.

“What should we name them?” Eric said as we drove to Ann Arbor. “I’ll do one, you do the other.”

“The duckling,” I said, “Mustard.” Eric laughed, I looked away from the birds and smiled at him. I like watching him when he drives.

“The goose is Soy Sauce, then,” he said. We laughed and then joked about enrolling the birds in elementary school, giving them espresso, making them pay taxes, letting them drive the car. We laughed the whole drive over.

I love that Eric loves animals. Nobody else would drop everything at a moment’s notice to save two baby birds. Nobody else would cry when the neighbor’s dog is left out too long in the rain. Being with him has only made me love little creatures more. I don’t kill spiders anymore. I take them outside in a cup, cringing the whole time because they look so scary to me. I don’t want to kill them, even though I think they’re so ugly it’s frightening.

I daydream about the pets Eric and I will one day have together. In the future I see myself going to the Humane Society alone and picking out an old dog for us to spoil. I imagine her name will be something silly like Kale or Juanita, and we will feed her an abundance of table scraps and take her for long winding walks. I think the way I think about having pets is similar to the way other people think about having kids.

The animals I’ve had over my life have brought me so much joy and heartache, which is what I assume parents feel about their children. I sobbed when my cat Roman had an ear infection last year, cursing myself for not taking him to the vet sooner. I make endless jokes about my elderly cat Patches, everyone in my life has heard me and Eric improvise little songs about her.

The first pet I ever had was a fish named Kimmy, after Chuckie’s stepsister in Rugrats. I think I was four years old. The fish died after being home for one day. It was overfed and was floating belly-up in its plastic bowl by morning. I sat on the kitchen counter and cried over its tiny orange body. I think that was the first time I felt genuinely broken over anything. Life has always been a sacred thing to me.

My parents adopted two kittens soon after. My older sister named the girl cat Patches, and I named the boy cat Joshua. I made welcome cards for them in crayon so they’d feel at home. My parents said the cats weren’t allowed into my or my sister’s bedrooms so we wouldn’t get cat fur all over our beds. The rule was broken quickly, but I remember one night is clear, childlike detail. It was storming outside. I woke up in my bed with Joshua curled beside me in bed.

My five-year-old brain felt an obligation to carry Joshua outside because I promised my parents I wouldn’t let him on my bed. I wanted so badly to close my eyes and fall back asleep with this ball of warmth purring next to my chest. At such a young age, the duty to my parents won out; I lifted Joshua up in my arms and carried him to the hallway. I apologized to him and left him on the carpet by my door, promising I’d see him in the morning. Even thinking about it now, I feel bad for Joshua. He’d sleep on my bed every night after that, but I still haven’t forgotten the night he slept without me in the hallway.

I can’t say no to animals now. Patches is eighteen years old, and she’s allowed to do whatever she wants whenever she wants with no consequences. She likes to sleep in the bedsheet closet upstairs, so I crack the door open for her, even though my mom complains about the fur. She likes to open the kitchen cupboards and sleep on the towels folded in there. We can’t use the towels because they’re thick with cat fur, but it’s what she wants.

When my seventeen-year-old cat Roman was going to be put to sleep, I cried everyday over his sleeping body. I gave him too much catnip and took him outside to roll around in the grass. He loved being outside and rolling in the dirt and grass, he’d squirm out of my arms when I’d try to bring him back into the house. On his last day, I let him walk down the street and underneath the parked cars, following him close behind. Anything he wanted, I let him have. His whole life has been like that. I have a thousand pictures of him on my phone.

I saw a post online once that said humans should guide their pets through life like a tour guide and “leave them with the best impression of earth.” It resonated with me. Animals don’t have much time on earth, but the little time they do have should be overflowing with love and kindness. I don’t move my cat from her spot on the bed, I sleep around her. I let her lick mayonnaise off my finger. I give her fresh water out of my cup.

My grandparents used to have a purebred pitbull named Chili. When we’d visit their one-story house in California, I’d spend hours in the yard with Chili, petting his big, boxy head and feeding him treats. I’d fill his water bowl with cold, clean water every morning.

My favorite moments with Chili were when everyone would go out except me and Gido. Gido would fall asleep on the big recliner in the living room, so I would sneak Chili in through the back door and let him lay on the shag carpet in the parlor, feeding him slices of ham from the fridge. I loved that dog. I cried when I found out Chili died.

An animal can be nothing but instinct and calm and nerve endings and obligation. I marvel at them. I love their search for calm, I love being involved in their peace. I fold blankets so my cat can curl up in a warm nest, I turn on the space heater because my dog likes laying in front of it. I feed a goose corn kernels of my palm, I leave sliced apples for the squirrels on the slab of concrete fence behind my house.

Animals have consistently touched and enriched my life. Their need, their innocence, their simplicity, their everything. Neil Hilborn said about his pet rat, “the last few months, where I think we / finally, really, completely loved each other, / not like humans do: humans always want / something from you and he and I / would rather just be together than apart.”

I really, completely, fully love every animal I encounter. Because I can’t not love them. Because the absence of them would make life almost not worth living. Because there have been times I only get out of bed to refill a water bowl, to scoop litter, to curl my body around my dog’s body on the couch. Because I look into my cats eyes and know her life would be worse without me in it, too. Because I don’t feel like a burden when I’m with my dog. Because I can give my whole self to an animal who doesn’t know my name, and I feel a little bit happier.