And every day, we directly experience the love of the animals with whom we share our lives — love without reservation, judgment, or expectation. The animals by our side don’t care what we look like, how successful we are, whether we are fat or thin, rich or poor. They simply love us . . . Unconditional love that never doubts our motives, neither wavering nor withdrawing. Adult humans, on the other hand, complicate love. We tend to love ambivalently. Our love comes mixed with other emotions: lack of trust, fear of loss of control, hesitancy to expose our vulnerability, doubt, and a resistance to relinquishing our own self-interest. Animals can teach us about love, about becoming vulnerable, and about leaving doubt behind. (Mary Lou Randour in Animal Grace)
Spice first came into my life when a distressed friend, who bred Siamese cats, called with the news that her youngest cat had just delivered six kittens and had no milk to feed any of them. Could I please look after Spice while she attempted to save the kittens?
When Spice, an undersized but beautiful Seal-Point arrived, I soon learned why it was necessary to separate her from the kittens. She was a diminutive ball of concentrated and distraught energy, flying about the living room with shrieking wails of protest, outraged at being in a strange place, and separated from her babies. Finally exhausted, she took refuge in the empty fireplace, rejecting any overtures on my part, and refusing food and water.
When at last I managed to gently touch her, I noticed that she appeared to be letting some milk down. I called my friend and suggested that we try reuniting Spice with one kitten to see if she could support it. Sugar arrived shortly thereafter, a tiny white slug, no longer than three inches. Spice appeared to be frantic with relief, immediately taking Sugar into the nest I had prepared for them, and keeping us all at bay with bared fangs and hissed warnings.
Attempts to introduce any of the other kittens met with Spice’s overwrought rejection. She bent the entire force of her will, which was considerable, into nurturing Sugar. As a result, Sugar spent most of her kittenhood in an over-fed state of somnambulence. She remained a slug, but now a very fat white slug. Spice dragged her all about the house with her, never willing to be parted for a moment. It was always a shock to awaken in the night and find them nestled in bed between my husband and me.
Only as Sugar’s velvety brown seal points began to emerge did she seem to gain personality of her own, a sweet, compliant, very loving one, in sharp contrast to her excitable and demanding mother.
Similarly fierce in protecting their territory from our other cats (who left them strictly alone), they remained very attached to each other and to me. Should I ever need protection, I thought, I would put Sugar and Spice, their eyes glinting a vicious and alarming red in the dark, at the head of my vanguard.
They spent their lives restlessly roaming the farm. Spice would often climb to sit on the very peak of the roof, from which height she would regale the countryside with Siamese tales and warnings. Sugar was usually to be found dozing in the sun.
When Sugar was ten, we noticed that she suddenly appeared to be both deaf and blind, although otherwise physically fit. Perhaps a stroke, the vet said, and because she still seemed to have such an appreciation of life, we could not bear to put her down.
Spice cared for Sugar more gently, more protectively, and more carefully than ever. They were hardly ever separated. Spice had even abandoned her top-of-the-house caterwaulings to restlessly prowl the perimeter as Sugar dozed in the sun, returning to touch noses with her frequently.
What did they say to each other, I wondered. Did Spice reassure Sugar that, although the world might be dark and silent, she was not alone? Or was that relationship perhaps blessed with extensions of the senses, and powers of communication of which I cannot begin to dream?
