We’ve gone mildly insane, haven’t we?

Imagine me rooted under the eaves of our apartment gate on learning that Divo’s and Dili’s care topped the divorce settlement of my neighbors, Don and Dee Ann —especially Dili’s special needs (with snow-white fur and sky-blue eyes, he’s deaf), in lieu of child support, as well the two-and-a-half bedroom apartment—one, being theirs, has been awarded to Dee Ann, too, who gained custody. 

Rescued from a highway in Dildo, Newfoundland, possibly abandoned—hence, prematurely weaned—a host of health issues plagues Dili’s “parents,” to this day. But a cuddly “beautiful” cat, they have humanized and pampered him no end, even adopting Divo to serve as his “ear” and caregiver.

Over protected, both wear leashes when taken out to the patio, just off the back door, or the courtyard that opens right at their front door. Neither of them would be allowed to chew on weeds, but especially flowers, which causes nausea in Dili—they eat organic pet food and treats, could romp all day and tussle with a hundred toys that you might trip on in Dee Ann’s living room.

A world away, literally, from what I recall of life with cats in Manila, which I bet remains the same—where food comes from scraps and bed or playground just anywhere—though a bit “more-like abroad” in some families now, or so I’ve noticed on Facebook. Often streaming into my news feed, pretty pure-bred felines and silk-coated toms, as well sometimes, an obituary less restrained than the death of a human, gain “likes” and comments often up to the hundreds: we’ve gone mildly insane, haven’t we?

I must confess though that I once thought of cat owners, who anthropomorphized their pets, as quite crazy, before I met Nikon, a black silk coated tom. But I married a cat-Samaritan, who rescued him and many more, humanizing them with names like Nikon, after his camera, hence, drawing whispers among neighbors, who must have thought of him as weird.

Called out by him, later, by me, at mealtimes along with a dozen family members among them their mothers, siblings, cousins, and aunts like Bombita, Ranjit, Onoda, Sylvestra, Paula, Raya, so named for their looks—neighbors, I later learned, would pause and peek from their laundry to watch in awe how they raced to the kitchen door; finally, slinking, Nikon, would bow as if civilized, before he answered to his own—how couldn’t he be but a son?

Unaware how much of a mom I had become, one early afternoon, I stepped into a thick silence as Irene, veiled in a cloche of mourning, announced that the hospital had left a message about Nikon’s passing while I sat through a meeting. Michele leaped off the couch in my office then at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’s PR Office, to give me a hug; the rest of the staff followed, leaving me no space to say the truth.

In a few hours, I would take his corpus from the veterinary hospital readied for a night burial under our bedroom window overlooking the coconut tree, where he had scrambled as a kitten. A week later, Mang Joe brought his headstone; in a solemn rite, Felix and I prayed under the santol tree, invoking St. Francis, for consolation, for us and millions of registered pet owners in North America, maybe millions more worldwide, who might have mourned or will, sometime for a pet, Don and Dee Ann among them.

According to Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada’s International Market Bureau 2011Market Indicator Report, “38.5 percent of Canadian households owned a cat in 2012,” With them wanting food similar to theirs—“incorporating natural, organic, eco-friendliness, health and wellness, as well as new tastes and flavors…Canadian cat food sales are expected to grow at a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 1.9 percent from 2011 to 2016, reaching sales of C$720.3 million.”

Quite a company suffering from a kind of insanity, eh?