What a small lesson for me in a big world. A simple thing like the extraction of a tooth but handled with acceptance and resilience. This is a short blog about Italy, our red cat (still a kitten in my heart).
On the morning that the offending tooth had to be removed, the oddity for our dear boy cat was that he was not given breakfast. Being such a gentle and sweet young soul, he was baffled by this but walzed around the house with his usual lion prowl. His joy has no limits. It was the humans who fretted more about how he (read: they!) would cope with not having his usual 05:15 breakfast.
After the operation, Italy was a bit miserable and sleepy. Understandably so. He hissed and growled at our vet (who I am sure is related to Michael Bublé, as an aside) but when he got home, with very wobbly legs and slanted eyes, he forgave us.
Pure acceptance and resilience. No fuss. No extra-ordinary attention required. Animals live very much in the present. For him, the tooth saga was not a saga at all, but a forgotten happening. All he wanted was the usual adoration and …. food. Lots of soft food.
My very dear friend, Kim, is a dentist and feline expert. He said that a tooth extraction has the same level of pain for a cat as a human. It is just that cats have a strong and innate survival instinct whilst us humans probably have lost ours. Humans, in my view, can also over-think such a thing and blow it out of proportion.
The removed offending tooth
I had to remind myself that Italy had an operation and to give him soft food not kibbles. He acted as though life was no different. How I wish I could filter out the fluff that life throws in my way and just be the very essence of being. Like our dear little red cat.
