30x30: Simba

30x30 ITEMS

Striped sweater: Banana Republic, $25

Tunic: thrifted, $5

Jeggings: gift

Boots: gift

ACCESSORIES REPORT

Zipper necklace: vintage from my mom

At the fair when I was seven, I asked my dad if I could have a kitten. I was careful to ask my dad because I knew my mom would say no. He told me that I could, so I went over to the cardboard box marked "Free Kittens" and picked the little black and white one. All of the other ones were plain orange; I picked mine because she stood out. My mom wasn't very pleased, but she let it be, and I named my little kitten Simba. I'd seen "The Lion King" a few weeks before.

Simba has been a part of our family ever since; now that I think of it, she's been with us longer than some of my brothers. Yesterday, after several months of deterioration and a few strokes, she left us for that great mouse-filled dandelion field in the sky.

These are some pictures I took of her at Christmastime, knowing it might very well be the last time I saw her. See how she's crossing her front paws in that second picture? She did that all the time. Very ladylike.

I'm not one of those people who's cool with death. Some of you, I'm sure, are able to look at death philosophically and peacefully, able to see it as just another part of life, necessary and beautiful in its own way. Me ... well, I haven't figured out how to do that just yet. Death strikes me as incredibly sad and unfair, and the very very few times it's touched my life have been really tough to figure out. I'm always asking "Why?"

It's a strange thing when a pet dies. This is my first experience with it. I wonder if part of the difficulty is that, however you might envision life after death, it's not easy to know how pets fit into that. We know that animals are different from people in some big-yet-abstract way, but they can feel so much like us when we bring them into our homes and give them names and toys. If they feel so much like family and friends, is it crazy to believe that they'll experience a similar eternal destiny? I'm going to assume, just for my own comfort, that Simba and I will be hanging out in Heaven one day.