Ginger

Watercolor, August 2021

My Mom lies down on the bed, while I sit next to her. The purple curtains capture the afternoon light to shield us from the heat. We take a moment to rest for a while.

One of our house cats, Dylan, climbs up the bed and walks around, navigating his way through crumpled sheets, our phones, and my Mom’s iPad, which Dylan claims as his.

He settles beside by Mom. Although the roaring of the rechargeable fan fills our corner of the room, we could hear a low and constant vibration—Dylan’s soft purrs amidst the fan’s noise.

My Mom puts her arm and hand near Dylan’s face, and then Dylan keeps his face there, taking in the scent of my Mom more.

“You know that Mommy is stressed?” my Mom asks Dylan.

I join in the conversation: “He’s taking all of your stress and exhaustion away.”

Sure enough, when my Mother sends photos of our cats (both our house cats and stray and feral cats outside who have adopted themselves freely into our little home) to our group chat with Dad, it’s as if a magic spell is cast on us, and my unspoken sadness dissipates and the giant ball of worry in my gut deflates. Instantly.

Simply looking at our cats (or any cat’s face) and taking in their round face, the fragile and cute line their eyes make when closed, their tiny noses, mouths, and whiskers are cathartic. I use that word, because it has ‘cat’ in it. Interestingly, cats have this way of cleansing the inside.

Ever since we started living with cats inside the house in 2018, our lives changed for the better. Orderliness is temporary, but the happiness and ‘lightness of being’ (to borrow that phrase from Milan Kundera) they bring are as transcendental as their nine lives.