Basically, I believe in cat reincarnation. That's what it boils down to.

So I was going to just write about something cute that happened this morning but I realized it won't really make sense unless I provide some background first. In my late teens and into my early twenties, I had a cat named Muffin. This period of my life was...not the happiest and I am not exaggerating when I say that this cat probably saved my life. I didn't feel that I had much to live for at the time. I had lost my faith in anything supernatural and the idea that purpose and meaning were things that I had to craft for myself left me reeling and rudderless. I remember casually telling my friends that everyone needs a Jesus--something that you can safely pour all your love into and know it will never hurt or leave you--and that's what my cat was to me. So basically, I took the void where religion used to be and...put. my. cat. there. I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And in my defense, she was a really special, sweet feline person. But while I was right about her being safe in the sense that she would always be a reflection of unconditional love,  the gaping flaw in my logic became apparent when she died of kidney failure at the tender age of six. I only mention this to underscore just how attached I was to this cat. Anyway, back to today.

This morning as I was getting ready, Fox picked up an old picture of me and Muffin. "Oohh...looka this!" He says, excitedly. I tell him that it's a picture of me and my silver kitty friend, Muffin. His eyebrows furrow and he proclaims, "No...no. That's me! Remember that? You were holding me!" This is either the second or third time that he's said this about this particular photo.

Now...I just want to say first off that I don't seriously entertain the notion that this could in any literal sense be true. For one thing, he's always asserting that he's the subject of photos (baby photos of Locke, for instance, are always actually Fox. According to Fox.). For another thing, I hate to be boastful, but I have enough skill in the arena of logic and reason to recognize how absurd it is to think that bitty Fox is really my dead cat made alive again. And yet...and yet. It is so comforting to me to take him at his word on this one. To believe him even knowing full well that this is impossible.

Maybe it's because he's part of what fills the same space in my heart that that silly, sweet cat left open and raw in her wake. Maybe it's because they share the same tendency to cry mournfully whenever I have the audacity to go somewhere and leave them behind. Or maybe it's just something innately human. A primal need to believe in things not because they're true but because they're useful. I don't really understand how a belief can be comforting even when the holder of said belief is aware that it's limited to the confines of their own mind. But. It somehow manages to work for me. My old kitty friend could never be replaced but it's so nice to feel that in some way, her tiny spirit managed to weave its way back to me through my little boy. So I'll roll with it. <3