First Love

By Terri Lacher

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.

~Colette

"I want to marry Comet," I announced to my family when I was nine years old.

"You want to marry someone fat, unemployed, and hairy?" my dad replied sarcastically.

Yes, that was exactly what I wanted. Comet, my white, and slightly overweight tabby cat, was all I could ever hope for in a happy marriage. His character was impeccable, and I couldn't imagine any human male meeting the high standards he had set.

I grew up a sickly child, and due to my complex medical condition, my parents had to drive me to an elementary school almost half an hour away from our house that had a full-time nurse on staff in case of an emergency. After school, the summer months were a little lonely since most of my friends lived thirty to forty-five minutes away.

Early in the summer of my eighth birthday, our cat had her first litter of kittens. I stared in rapture as each small body came into the world, took a gulp of air, and let out the first squeals of life. One by one they came. The first three of the four kittens were dark calicos with small patches of gold across their backs. Then the last kitten came rolling out, covered in snow white fur with large patches of orange that looked like my three-year-old sister had finger painted them. I saw his small pink mouth open, swallow a breath of air, then unleash a sneeze that shook his entire newborn body.

I watched as his eyes opened for the first time, revealing gold-colored eyes. I stared into them intently, wishing for telepathy to connect us. It was love.

"Your name is Comet," I wanted to tell him, "because your spots look like stars."

I saw him walk and experiment with his first bites of solid food. Completely devoted, I felt as proud of my kitten as though I had given birth to him myself. Weeks of begging my parents to let me keep him proved successful and we became inseparable. He followed me everywhere, even to church. He learned how to climb my bunk bed to sleep on my pillow, and would, on rare occasions, leave me "presents" like dead mice or small birds.

As I grew older, my condition worsened. Nights spent in the hospital weren't uncommon, but after a successful surgery, I was sent home. My exhausted parents fell into their first peaceful sleep in weeks, believing the worst was over. It may have been an hour or two before I awoke, my temperature spiking and the sheets clinging to my wet limbs. I wrestled away the fabric and gingerly climbed from my bed to the floor, only to convulse from heaves coursing through my body. I stumbled into the bathroom, clutching my stomach, hoping for what was inside to stay there. It was to no avail, and as I felt the thrust of my stomach again, I whispered into the dark, "Mom, Dad, help," and then I blacked out.

Hours later, I awoke in the hospital, hooked up to highways of tubes and wires. I heard the words "infection," "dehydrated," and "it's a miracle." As my vision became sharper, I looked into the eyes of my mom, holding my hand, telling me that I would be fixed up in no time.

"What's wrong? What happened?" I croaked.

"You were very sick, sweetheart. Your dad and I wouldn't have known if Comet hadn't woken us up. He was throwing a huge fit, and wouldn't leave us alone. When I got up to throw him out of our room, I heard you and we got you here as fast as we could." Mom looked so tired, but I saw relief in her face.

Comet rarely let me sit in a room alone after that night. I called him my knight in shining fur, made plans for when we would be married, and ignored my dad's comments about him being unemployed. As I have grown older and learned that interspecies marriage is frowned upon, I know I am well on the path to becoming the crazy cat lady on the corner. Love is blind, and a little crazy, but I believe it is worth it with a cat like Comet.

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