I’ve purchased nearly a dozen lifelike cats and dogs for the residents during my time at the Mansion; it melts my heart to see the joy and comfort it gives the people who get them and live with them.

Assisted care life can be lonely, and animals, even replicas,  continue their work to tend to people’s emotional lives.

Not everyone asks for one, but the ones who tell me this transforms their lives and fill a deep and often dark hole.

Art is the first man  I’ve met to fall in love with a lifelike cat; he is the newest member of my meditation class.

I was asked to buy the cat – Art has named her Ginger –  for the people in the Memory Care unit, but there is some illness there now, so the cat remained in her box in the Activity Room until this morning.

When I came for the Meditation Class, Bonnie, an activities director, took her out of the box to show it to me.

She said it was shockingly lifelike. And it is.

Art was transfixed and transformed by the cat. We never saw him smile like that. Ginger brought him to life. She touched the deepest parts of him.

He took Ginger in his lap. He talked to her. He brushed her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She moved her head and meowed and purred whenever he stroked her.

When I first saw her, I thought she was a real cat, and so did the members of her class.

Art is a taciturn man, a gentleman, soft-spoken, and much in his world. “He’s one of the good ones,” said June.

But he came out of that world today, taken over by his love of the cat, smiling, laughing. He just lit up.

He kept looking at me and nodding as if he couldn’t quite believe he could keep stroking Ginger.

Bonnie and I assured him that he could.

We looked at each other and had the same thought at that exact moment.

There was no way I was going to take this cat away from Art.

“Bonnie,” I whispered, “let’s give this cat to Art; I’ll get another one for the Memory Care unit.” She agreed, and she said it was a great idea. Art brushed Ginger and smiled at her, and listened to her during our meditation work.

I am always surprised and touched by what these substitute animals do for the people in assisted care. But I think I underestimated it.

It goes right to the heart. They hold them, stroke them, take them to bed, sit with them, read to them, brush them, and care for them.

I see that the nurturing gene is very strong in humans, and it desperately needs an outlet at times. It fills a hole. These created creatures bring meaning to life, something that can get lost in the very old.

I whispered to Bonnie, what a joy it is to give this much pleasure. She nodded.

 

The cat story wasn’t over. Claudia, the first member of my class and one of the most faithful, also fell in love with Ginger. I have come to love the sweetness of Claudia.

She was also transformed and transfixed. It is difficult for me to describe the depth of feeling and joy the cat was bringing to Art and Claudia especially.

I saw this look in the eyes of the other people who had come today. That’s when it first hit me: I have to get more cats.

When I saw Claudia’s look – Art generously let her stroke Ginger for a while, I knew I had to get one of these cats for Claudia. I did; it’s on the way to the Mansion now.

I’ll get you one, I told her.

She cried while trying to thank me. There was a lot of emotion in the room. I’m getting four or five more.

I don’t have the money right now, and they are not cheap.

I’ll have to save up. (If anyone wants to help, you can donate via Paypal, [email protected], or Venmo, Jon-Katz@Jon-Katz-13 or by check, Jon Katz, Cat Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.) 

We did the class with Ginger on the table and Zinnia on the floor.  Zinnia was taken by Ginger. She kept coming up and licking her, confused a bit, puzzled that she wasn’t like our cats but happy to love her.

I got used to the meowing I heard whenever Art or Claudia touched Ginger.

The class was unique, as always. We talked about the loss that comes with aging – the loss of strength, friends, people, and memories. And we talked about the gains, the things we lose, and the things we can gain if we try.

What makes older people sad, said Karen, isn’t so much that so many of the beautiful things and people in their lives are gone, but that “nobody cares about them now but us.”

That, she said, was the hard part; there is no one to share the landmark memories of their lives.

The high cost of memory, I said, is the sadness of  loss.

As the commonplace and familiar disappears, there is a growing awareness that we have become a world unto ourselves; it can feel very lonely.

I asked the class to think about the new things that have come into their lives, not the old things that are gone. There was a lot of head-nodding. We all offered examples.

I felt a lot of emotion; I’m not sure I was ever as moved by the work we do at the Mansion as I was today. It really matters. I’m really making a difference, as does Maria with her much-loved art projects.

“Your wife is an amazing lady,” one of the Mansion aides told me, “they love her so much.”

I think we were all feeling it.

” Ginger is a new thing,” said Claudia, “my cats are dead, but Ginger is here.”  I could almost hear what she was thinking: we could get some of it back.

I listed all the things I can do now that I am older than I ever did when I was younger – dog therapy work, Mansion work, refugee work, photography, blogging, love, and new friends. I was never good at being young, I said.

I’m not too bad at getting older.

 

 

It didn’t have to be all about loss, I said, it’s our choice. We aren’t dead; the doors to a new commonplace are open. There was much additional nodding; I felt as if I had connected to the residents more deeply than before.

They were listening closely, all awake and focused.

It helps that I am going through some of the same things, yet I know there are new beginnings and losses. That, I said, is the joy of living in the now. I know I’m different, but there is common ground.

We can stand up straight and sing our hymns, I said. I’m getting more cats, not for everyone but for the people we can see really want one.

Cat fund: Paypal, [email protected], Venmo, Jon-Katz-Jon-Katz-13, Jon Katz, Cat Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.  Perhaps a dog also if anybody wants one.

They do more good than I ever imagined.