Melissa Macfarlane

On my bus ride this morning, I saw a billboard ad that said something like "Be the person your pet thinks you are." It made me think for a moment.

Our mothers think we, their children, are good people. Most of the time, anyway. But is that merely from ignorance and blindness? I think that our mothers only choose to see the good, as they don't want to accept that which is not.

Our pets, on the other hand ... well, they really do think we are wonderful creatures. They seem to find the inherent goodness in us all. They depend on us more than children depend on mothers - after all, eventually children grow up and fly away on their own. Pets you are bound to for life. We take care of them, give them love and nurture them, we tidy up for them. They own us more than we own them.

My pet right now is actually my roommate's cat, so she’s not really 'my pet.'  Regardless, in the year that we've spent together we've bonded and fallen in love in that person-cat way. When I come home from work, she sits on the other side of the door, patiently waiting for me to unlock and come into the apartment. She meows her delight that I have come home, and proceeds to follow me around the apartment for the next 20 minutes until I settle on the couch to watch the rest of my soap. She must think I’m pretty spectacular to want to be everywhere that I am.

I really do want to be that great person who the cat thinks I am. Someone who is worthy of excitement to be welcomed home, someone who elicits sheer pleasure just to get a pat on the back from. I should take that feeling I have with the cat and tuck it in my back pocket, save it for the times when I am feeling unsure of myself, or for when I know I am not treating others with the respect and love that I give to the cat.

I can learn a lot from her. Even though there are times that I am frustrated and show my annoyance to her by shooing her away, or grumbling to her to be quiet, she still loves. She slinks back over a little while later and looks up at me with her big green eyes that seem to say "I still love you….please pet me ..." She knows that I am still a good person, but that I had a momentary lapse, and I am forgiven.

We can argue until the sun comes up over whether cats are geniuses or dimwits. My opinion is that cats -- and dogs, and guinea pigs, or whatever else you might have -- are geniuses. They have figured out love and forgiveness. They see what is good, what is real, and accept us for who we are. They even manage to evoke that good natured behaviour in us somehow.

If we could just figure that out for ourselves, perhaps we'd be a happier bunch of creatures who wander across this earth, be creatures that are envied by others.