True Love

I've had a life without romantic love. Not that I haven't tried. My heart's been broken more times than I can count, and usually by men who barely knew I existed.

I've wasted my love on disinterested men, sarcastic men, gay men, reckless men and married men. I've cried over unfaithful men, and truly faithful men, wishing I could feel for them what they felt for me.

The purest love of my life has been my cat, Saturn.

We met on an early fall day in the parking lot of my old condominium complex. He was sitting on the hood of a Mitsubishi, washing his belly. I had never seen such a beautiful animal, silver, white and grey with big blue eyes and a cinnamon-colored nose. Like a cross between a Siamese and a big tabby cat. I remember my first words to him: "Hello, who is this?"

He dropped what he was doing and came right over to me, bumping his head against my calves. I gave him my special cat-scratch on his back. Soon, every time I went outside, there he was, waiting for me. I started bringing him little cat treats every day. He began standing up against my driver's side door, on his hind legs and looking in the window every time I got in the car to head to work.

One day, after much prompting from friends, I brought down my kitty-carrier and swooped him up into the box. He never meowed and never, ever wanted leave my apartment. Even when his owners, the loud beer-swilling neighbors behind my building, called out his former name, "Charlie", he never blinked. Never even looked wistfully out of the window. He was mine and I was his. His new name became Saturn, after the ringed-planet that reminded me of his tail.

He is the most affectionate cat I have ever known with a loud, rhythmic purr that rumbles across the room. Occassionally, his 18 pound frame sits on my chest and his warm glows radiates. It feels like the biggest and most satisfying hug on the planet. I feel so happy and content that I just melt.

He and I have lived together for 13 years in four seperate apartments (in 3 different states). Last year I almost lost him to a kitty virus. Thankfully, he made a full recovery. Saturn and I have endured in ways most couples never do. Certainly in ways I never have with a human man.

I guess the love of my life will be covered by fur, have four legs instead of two and eat his food out of a bowl. I think I can live with that.