Cat Math

There are a few conventions about cats that make sense: They always land on their feet, purring means they’re content, if they gnaw your arm off, you should probably move your mangled hand away from said cat’s belly. These are the contemporaneous cat knowledge. We know them. But what about cat math?

Let’s say that your five-year old cat growls outside one night and the next morning, their 10 pounds of fur, flesh and love are nowhere to be seen. But then let’s add the variable that the cat’s name is Princess. Princess Killer. This is the cat who chases German Shepherds, the cat who kills up to three mice a day. I know this because she makes a show out of the murder, making long, dramatic artistic experiences for her audience, often at 3:30 am. Often bringing the live event right to your bed! In the morning, the fall out is nothing more than a mouse snout. Apparently Princess Killer is allergic to whiskers.

Let’s say that cat has been your constant. Let’s say you went through a divorce and your kids moved out and the only semblance of your past life was a long-haired monster who still nurses on your ears.

Let’s say she goes on an adventure and a week later, she’s still not back. Let’s say you start doing another type of math.

An owl took out 4 of our chickens last fall. Early this spring, two ravens drew our guard dogs away from the farmyard, leaving the area unsecured. Two bald eagles and a golden eagle took out a few ducks and three full-sized geese. Before the snow melted, we had a coyote run off with a duck a day from nearly a week. With math like this, we know the risks of having our beloved pets outside.

But the wild nature in Princess Killer was not to be tamed. She was a regal force for good in the farmyard, around the house, climbing trees, keeping vermin from the house, being amicable with all the farmlings.

Let’s say a few weeks later you go to a pet shop and the Humane Society left some kittens there and you cry in the middle of a store around strangers and then you run out of the store. After 6 hours you go back to the store and buy the kittens because, because, because.

Because maybe if you get them and go outside and say “wow these new kittens SURE ARE CUTE” then Killer will come back, mildly irritated with the new bundles. Because you need something to fawn over. Because you don’t want to think about how your heart is breaking with every moment that PK is not in your bed, in your face, in your living breath. Because they looked so cute and sad in that window.

You get two cats because it will take more than one measly cat to help distract you from the immeasurable heartache you walk through each moment with. You keep that heartache in your pocket. It’s yours and it’s precious and you don’t want to find out what happens when that heartache goes away. That heartache means she’s still here.

You get to cats to show the heartache “you meant so much to me there isn’t a single animal who could make me feel the joy you did.”

How lucky we are to love so immensely that we hurt and hurt pure and big and strong. This hurt is how we quantify love I guess. That’s the math of it all.

I imagine Killer is on a grand adventure, riding a golden eagle, heading down to Brazil where it’s warm and there are more grand adventures to take and she finds many more earlobes to suckle and the cat food flows like something that flows like cat food. And she is loved.