Carma Bites

Fourteen years ago today, my life was irrevocably changed - for the better, I hasten to add. Fourteen years ago today, The Girl and I rescued a tiny little bundle of disdainful black and white fluff (so tiny that his entire body could fit into the palm of my actually quite small hand) and brought him into our home.

And we called him Carma.

We later discovered that when Carma came into our lives, became a member of our little family, he was only three weeks old. He had been taken away from his mother at least five weeks too early - possibly even longer, as I suspect he'd been in the situation he was rescued from for at least a week already - and, subsequently, hadn't been weaned properly. The only skills he really possessed at that point were the ability to use a litter tray without prompting, and cause people to fall in love with him. For the longest time, he would only relax if he was curled into the crook of my neck - presumably so that he could hear me breathe, catch the vibrations of my heart through my collar bone, know that he had someone who loved him enough to protect him.

Contrary to popular thought, however, Carma was not entirely vulnerable. Fortunately, he had (well, still has...) a stubborn streak a mile and a half wide and long enough to wind round the planet a few dozen times. He became my shadow. Everywhere I went, Carma was right beside me - even into the shower, bizarrely enough. To start off with, he'd sit on the cabinet next to the shower and rage because I was behind the curtain and he wasn't. Then, as he got older and bigger, he'd launch himself through the gap between the curtain and the wall and plant himself on my feet, under the spray... then complain loudly about the fact that he was getting wet. He showered with me daily up until about four years ago when he decided that the bathroom windowsill in our new house was a far better vantage point for him to wait for me.

It's dry, for one thing...

Because I grew up surrounded by animals (dogs, primarily, but also sheep, cattle and my eccentric great-aunt's menagerie of chinchillas, guard-goats, rabbits, rats, etc.), I had always wanted my offspring to have at least one animal share their living space. When The Girl was a baby, there wasn't room or time for animals - other than Meg, my cantankerous chinchilla, who hated everyone (especially me!), the animals in her life lived with my parents. Carma was, therefore, her first real experience of sharing her home, life and mother's attention with another creature. I'd like to be able to claim that it worked out beautifully, that The Girl and Carma simply adored one another right from Day One...

... but I'd be lying.

You see, because Carma was so young when we rescued him, he had no real clue that he was, actually, a cat. He'd try to play with The Girl as he would have played with his litter-mates - presuming, of course, that he'd originally had some; I simply don't know if he did, or not. And, of course, little girls don't have claws, or thick pelts of fur to protect their skin from being raked at by cats pretending to be lions... The Girl, therefore, spent most of her time fleeing Carma's "games", which undoubtedly simply made them more fun for him. Luckily, he never actually hurt her (had he done so, I wouldn't be writing this post today, because he would have had to find another home...) - but within a very short space of time, he'd worked out that he could herd her about the flat we were living in, simply by waving a paw with claws out in her general direction. There were, actually, benefits to this. If The Girl was in her bedroom and I was calling her, only to be ignored... there would be three shouts of her name, then Carma would get involved and herd her out to me. Consequently, she learned very quickly that ignoring Mummy was not the wisest of ideas she'd ever had. Generally, though, once Carma was a few months old, they'd each try to pretend the other didn't exist unless herding was required. It worked for them, and all these years later, they get along pretty well together. The Girl loves Carma, and Carma loves the fact he can make her sit with him on her lap for hours because she doesn't want to run the risk of being herded again!

So, Carma tends to tolerate The Girl's existence... but he worships The Boy. When I was pregnant with The Boy, Carma would spend hours draped across my belly lovingly purring at it. When I brought The Boy home from the hospital when he was seven hours old, I admit to the fact that I was a little worried about the fact that Carma and our other cat, Corby, hadn't ever been around babies before. You hear, or are vindictively told about the old-wives-tales of cats stealing babies breath by lying on their faces/heads whilst they're sleeping (mostly from my mother and my ex-mother-in-law, actually)... and we had a net to go over The Boy's Moses basket and his crib in the bedroom, just in case. But, frankly, they were never needed. Because my labour with The Boy had been so quick (92 minutes from start to finish), I was - literally - in shock for about a week afterwards. Carma was more interested in making sure that I was okay, than he was in smothering my new son... My ex (Slug) actually took off on what he actually called "a baby gap year" around the world when The Boy was two weeks old, leaving me with an eight-year-old, a newborn baby and, actually, grieving the fact that there should have been two newborn babies instead of "just" one. It was probably at that point that Carma actually fell in love with The Boy.

I was doing my PhD when The Boy was born and whilst The Girl was at school, he and I would sit in our front room - him either in his Moses basket, or in one of those baby carrier things you wear - whilst I studied. Carma would spend hours sitting on the desk simply staring at him intently whilst I read, made notes, re-read, wondered if I was going insane... I always knew when The Boy was going to wake up, or start crying, or need something, before he moved, or made a noise, because Carma would put his paw on my arm so that I'd have to pause what I was reading, or writing, and then... the baby would wake up, or cry. Even now, I know when The Boy isn't feeling very well, or something's weighing on his mind, because Carma will sit and stare at him in that unnerving way cats have of possibly looking deep into the depths of your mind and seeing your soul. Carma still sleeps with me at night (although we've graduated from crook of neck to over the top of my head... and if he can push me off the pillow completely, even better!), but he'll vanish to check on The Boy at least twice in the night, and I love the fact that he does that. Somewhere in the depths of Carma's brain, I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that he thinks The Boy is actually his baby.

In the last two years, we've had a couple of times when we've thought we were going to lose Carma. He's getting older, he's slowing down, he has arthritis in his back end... but he's still stubborn, still devoted to "his" family, still believes that he purrs me to sleep each night (I discovered very early on that if I pretend to be asleep, he'll stop purring and go to sleep himself!), still nips the people who piss me off, is still the only soul who actually loves me no matter what.

They say that children love you unconditionally. They don't. Children love their parents for primal reasons of survival. Simple as. Dogs love us because they think we're gods... and we feed them. Cats, however? When a cat loves you, and I mean truly, deeply, genuinely loves you... it's unconditional.

Because they don't have to love us.

And that, is why every year on June 25th, I am quietly grateful for the fact that Carma came into our lives and became such an intrinsic part of our family. He's stubborn, bad-tempered, slightly over-protective of those he deems "his"... but he's Carma.

And Carma (sic) is, after all, what makes the world turn...