I Meet Leah (2015)

Never Say Never

“I’ll never live with a cat again”.

I heard myself say that, many times, and I was sure it was about the litter boxes.

To be clear: I love cats. I have lived with six different cats over the years, and

those cohabitations covered more than twenty wonderful years of my life. I have

also met and enjoyed photographing more than a thousand cats here at the

studio.

My last pet, a cat named Scout, passed away in May of 2010, and with that, I

was done.

It just seemed like a good idea for me not to have a pet. At first, I was facing

some life challenges and major loss. I was preoccupied.

After things leveled off, life just seemed easier without someone to feed and care

for. I enjoyed a life uncluttered by compulsory dog walks, litter boxes, trips to the

vet - and the heartache of watching a companion grow old.

I had things pretty well worked out. I enjoy dog-share privileges with Izze and

Sugar Bean, dog friends who live in two different homes that I frequent. That

counts, right? I meet plenty of dogs and cats through my work, and my daughter

and I volunteer at the Evanston Animal Shelter. I get my fix. Why would I want a

pet?

I think they call this process rationalization.

Our job at the shelter is playing with cats. One day, recently, as I passed through

the isolation section, a little black and white cat looked me in the eye, rolled over

on her back and stretched both white paws through her cage door. To me.

Her name was Leah, and I started thinking about Leah. A lot. I began asking

questions about her

.

One day, after she’d been sprung from isolation, I heard that Leah was alone in

the getting-acquainted room. I saw her crouched in the far corner, hunkered

down under the shelter of a long bench.

I slipped in and sat down on the bench. Within a minute, little Leah had come out

from under the bench, hopped onto my lap, settled comfortably between my

thighs, and claimed me.

For the next several days, I agonized about the dramatic life-style changes

involved with having a pet. I talked myself out of taking Leah home more than

once.

At the same time, I worried that someone else would find her.

So one day recently, I found myself at home, Leah curled warmly in my lap. I felt

so much love for this tiny, furred creature that I could not fathom how I had lived

for six years without an animal to come home to.

A client whose dog had passed away in the months since her portrait sitting

summed things up for me in a recent visit. She and her husband were at odds

about getting a new dog. She felt ready, he did not. As she turned to leave, she

looked over her shoulder at me and said, “You either love and live or you do

neither.”

2015