About a week ago, when I was putting on Kindle my short story for children called The Cat and the Queen, I chose a cover and then decided the cover would look better if I added a subtitle. It isn't often that the right words occur immediately, but the phrase "an animal family story" came to me almost instantly, and I wrote it down before I forgot it. Even though I was the one who thought of it, I didn't understand it at first. And then I did.
The family in question in that story is a cat family, but the expression was broader than that, because the bonds in the story were broader than cat to cat. The people and the cats were an extended family. And I realized that this was true in many, many stories I've written.
When I was sending out my first novel for children, Cats, Dogs and Miracles, I got a "bite" from an editor at Dutton. She liked several things about the first chapters, but she couldn't figure out why an old lady in the story was giving a birthday party for her cat. (The story was set in a fishing village in Denmark in the 1930s, and everybody in the village was coming -- in relays -- to the party.)
I had absolutely no idea how to tell her that the ties between the villagers and their cats and dogs were so close that there really wasn't much distinction between two-leggeds and four-leggeds. Of course, I did tell her, just as I have written it here, but there was no way to convince her. It was outside her realm of experience.
That interaction with the editor taught me more clearly than anything else how much I have changed since I was a child. I didn't know any animals growing up. I was always friendly toward them, but I didn't sense any connection, and now I do -- all the time. When I take my morning walk, I usually meet a small number of dogs and cats, and as soon as I do, they fill my vision. A wide emotional space opens up, and they walk right in, straight into my heart.
They are, almost automatically, my favorite family members. I cherish them, pray for them, and just simply enjoy their presence.
Years ago, in a catalogue I can't remember, I came across a reference to animals (probably on a tee-shirt) as "other nations." I thought that was the perfect way to regard them, because it grants them the respect they deserve.
I'm grateful for being allowed to intermarry with the members of these nations who have brought such joy into my life, such warmth, and -- when I think of the cat café we have in our driveway -- such opportunities for service.
