They say that happiness is not so much experienced as it is remembered. Only when we look back do we realize where and when we were truly happy.
Maybe the same could be said for peace. Perhaps it is not felt so much as it is realized. We suddenly and unexpectedly realize that for a brief period, perhaps, a calm has descended.
Saturday night we were with friends in another city. When we got home, Mom got the kids ready for bed while I made the 12 or 15 trips back and forth from house to car to unload all the paraphernalia that had been needed for a 30-minute trip down the highway.
One by one, my family retired to their nests and were soon asleep, tired from an all-day romp with friends. My wife, too, was not long out of bed, a busy day awaiting her on Sunday.
And me? I was too buzzed on the gallon of cola I’d drunk at our friends’ place to even consider lying down. So, I grabbed a milk and granola bar and went down to the rec room to catch some TV. I shut the sound off and wore headphones so as not to wake up anyone. Finding it a bit chilly in the basement, I covered myself up with my daughter’s old Winnie the Pooh duvet that, in a pinch, would keep an Arctic explorer from freezing to death. I turned on the tube and caught my favourite comedy show. It’s very rude, but funny.
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When that show ended, I began the much-maligned male ritual of “flipping” and eventually landed on some sort of hockey show which involved my boyhood idol, Gordie Howe. Called Net Worth, it was the gripping tale of how NHL hockey players, led by Detroit Red Wing great Ted Lindsay, fought team owners in the ’50s and ’60s to improve their pay, benefits and pensions. It was a fascinating, well-acted, well-written movie, the best I’ve seen in a while. And it came out of the blue. I had no idea it would be on or that it would be that good.
As I watched, I eventually realized that the ample sections of the duvet which flowed out from my comfy chair over the floor in front of me had been occupied by Mario and Luigi, the two rapidly enlarging kittens that came into our lives this summer. They curled up tightly to each other as they always do at night, body to body, heads nuzzled into each others’ necks and sides. And went to sleep.
Here’s where the peace part came in. Nice cosy chair, great movie about my hero and about hockey in the days when it was everything to me, yummy granola bar and cold milk in hand, headphones allowing me to listen at whatever volume I wanted to without waking anyone, and kittens asleep at my feet. Things, I realized, were pretty darned peaceful – for a change.
During a commercial, I sensed a bit of movement from my duvet companions below, so I looked down to see Luigi giving his brother a complete ear to ear, chin to neck, bath, something he often does to his bigger, more rambunctious sibling. (I had never seen Mario return the favour but the next night, he did.) And I marvelled that two young cats that can rarely be found more than a few feet apart wherever they are, would apparently want to take care of each other so well. Maybe it’s instinct – reducing the scent to keep predators off the trail but it sure looked like Luigi and his raspy tongue were ladling out a bit of love. And his brother was happily soaking it all up, moving his head appropriately to make sure no important parts were missed. Why, I wondered, would they be so good to one another? If he needed one, would I give my brother’s head a bath?
Not that it is always so. They chase each other and wrestle and bite and now and then a squeal escapes one of them when teeth sink a bit too deeply into a tender part of their anatomy, but apparently, they have the capacity to forgive and forget.
And, I confess, I am not always so enchanted by the little darlins for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with the destruction of our property and the reasons cat litter was invented.
But one night, maybe only a few hours of chaos subdued, was a gift. I happily took it.
Who knows when it will come again?
©2005 Jim Hagarty
(Update 2020: Luigi left us last fall. I seem to be his stand-in. Two or three times a day, Mario finds my lap, and cavorts around on it while I pet him nose to toes. He especially likes having his head molested so I go at it like I’m peeling a grapefruit. Maybe it comforts him, even reminds him of his brother. I help Mario and just as he did for Luigi, he helps me. Any old port in a storm, he says.)
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