Eighty-Two Cats

Last month Jenn and I were watching a clip from the reality TV show, "Hoarders." The show was a complete let down. I mean, if I'm going to debase myself enough to watch people with serious mental health issues humiliated on national television, I at least want to be entertained.

The woman on the show had 84 cats which she referred to as her "babies." The camera caught cats milling about, licking their paws, and lolling around on the furniture in the background. Her husband remained resolutely silent during the interview, but seemed to be on-board with his wife's obsession.

The rest of her family were  quite concerned about their cat-obsessed relative. And like any loving relations, they called a cable network to see if they might make a quick buck (and acquire a little national fame) from this woman who broke down in tears at the idea of anyone telling her to  give up even one of her children. The camera followed a mental health counselor into the cat lady's house where he tried to convince her into accepting his belief that keeping 84 cats prowling about her home was a little, uhm, unhygienic. (Author's note: Why, the monthly kitty litter bill alone must be astronomical!)

We tuned in just as the therapist was going in for his second visit. He walked around a bit, asked the woman a few questions, listened to her compassionately, and then left five minutes after he arrived, shaking his head, grim-faced, as if to say, "I've done all I can. The rest is in God's hands."  Back in his office, the therapist spoke in all seriousness about how the woman "just wasn't ready to give them up yet."
That was it. That was the end of the show. Four years of undergraduate school, a masters in psych, and no doubt a PhD. for a guy to shake his head and tell us a severely mentally ill woman hadn't been cured.

How is this related to my quest to keep a blog about becoming a father? Very loosely, very taking-the-long-way-around-the-baby-cul-de-sac kind of way. After watching the show--aside from wondering how much the cat woman had been been paid for subjecting herself to national ridicule--I was forced to look at my relationship with my own two cats, Duma and Honey.

Jenn says I am one of the great male cat lovers. It is true, I do fawn over them. I like to make sure they have fresh water in both their upstairs and downstairs water dishes; I turn their food over in their food bowl so the fresh stuff is on top; when I come home, I scoop the younger one up, throw her over my shoulder and stroke her back while she happily twitches her tail and purrs; and yes, I do talk to our kitties using what can only be described as baby intonations (but in a manly sort of way). I have come to the conclusion that the main difference between myself and the woman on "Hoarders" is 82 cats.

However, our kitties have given me another gift: they are training me to be a father. Yes, I know, big difference--cats and kids--but as someone who has avoided having dependents of any kind most of my life, Honey and Duma have primed the pump. For years I didn't keep even so much as a house plant. I preferred, rather, the freedom of being able to pick up and leave without being accountable to anyone or anything. Now I am married and have -- and please prepare to have your gag reflex triggered -- two fuzzie-wuzzies to look after. Jenn and I have plants, our finances have become intertwined, and there is a mutant sea horse--our daughter-to-be--swimming laps in my wife's womb.

During the ultrasound, we got to see Zinnia moving around. It made parenthood that much more real and immediate. I have long compared my impending fatherhood to a shamanic ceremony. Once you are in -- once you drink the medicine -- you are all in, and there is no turning back. Seeing our baby shifting and sliding in Jenn's belly drove this home. We saw her kidneys, her head and stomach, we heard the gallop of her heartbeat and saw her little feet. And with life itself moving around on the ultrasound screen, I witnessed my dreams of traveling the world and spiritual retreats, of self-indulgent depression and my no-strings-attached lifestyle, disintegrating before my eyes. I felt fear. I continued to watch and felt the fear lessen, and continued to watch and started to experience a quiet fascination with this being, and felt the realization that before long, our lives and karma will be hopelessly, irretractably intertwined.