It Is Strange . . . . . .
posted in Cat Quotations |It is strange that it has taken so long for the medical profession to realise that a small animal can ease stress and pain and loneliness in the old and the ill.
A cat or dog does not help merely by being soft and warm and alive, but by telling the human being that it does not matter if she or he is old or ugly, helpless or confused. It does not matter that they have failed, if they are poor, or that the world seems to have no further use for them.
An animal sees the self that has never changed since it was newborn, the young soul that occupies the old or injured body.
The kind young nurses smile, but they do not know the person in their care is the same age as themselves, trapped in a body they barely recognise as their own.
An animal makes no such mistake.
They are like us. A young cat looks out of a body grown gaunt with age. We share the strange phenomenon of eternal youth. We all die young.
I lack all certainty, yet still I hope, that at the edge of death I’ll see a small cat racing from the dark to welcome me.
Pam Brown
