Q&A with Angela Townsend

We are delighted to have published a nonfiction piece this week! Angela Townsend has graciously shared with us her essay “The Cat May Recover Yet,” a story that (miraculously) left us with a silver lining to COVID and (obviously) impressed us with its memorable depiction of how deep and distinct relationships with animals can be. One of our editors, Róisín Sheerin, interviewed Townsend, and we highly recommend you give it a read and rejoice with us over Kanki’s health!

I enjoyed your essay and I felt I got to know Kanki, you conveyed him so clearly. How is he doing? How are you both doing?

What a kind and beautiful question. I’m overcome with gratitude to say that Kanki made a full recovery from feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), and he is plump, thriving, and about to celebrate his fifth birthday.

Perennially wonderstruck, he has been my gentle mentor in a poignant way this winter. As we’ve experienced historic cold and storms, Kanki has been transfixed by splendor where humans see inconvenience. He coaxes me to share in his joy, sitting at the window and “singing” to the snow in little sighs that can only be translated as awe. It is hard to grumble when I live with such a weatherproof celebrant of life.

Are there any animal themed novels/stories/non-fiction pieces that have particularly affected you – either as a child or adult?

Many! But the two that have been my dearest touchstones are The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell, and the entirety of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

Do other animals do it for you, or is just cats?

I’m smitten with them all, but cats have my heart in a singular way. This dates back to my beloved first cat, Fig Newton, who my family adopted to comfort me after I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age nine. We were inseparable, and he still visits me in dreams.

Is Kanki an indoors/outdoors cat? Have you tried walking him on a lead? (I have a neighbour who ‘walks’ their cat by pushing it in a pram.)

I love the image of your neighbour’s cat riding in a pram like a tiny duchess, and I have friends whose cats delight in their outdoor strollers. But, Kanki and his sister Betsy are strictly indoor cats. Given his exuberance and virtuosity for getting into trouble, I’d be worried about bringing him outside even on a harness. Fortunately, he is never bored (and encourages me to be as excited about the “ordinary” as he is).

There is a terrible sense of powerlessness when you are caring for an animal who is not well and the animal cannot tell you its symptoms, there can be a lot of guess work. Have you had to mourn animals in your past? Do you think there is a different type of bereavement losing an animal who is ‘family’ than losing a human who is close to you?

You capture that helpless feeling gracefully. Having lost both cats and people I could not imagine living without, I dare not compare the two enormities of grief. My writing desk holds the photographs of “ancestors” of two species, from my Dad and grandparents to my soulmate cats Pippa, who slept in my arms every night for fifteen years, and Dibbles, who knew the music of my soul. I speak to them many times a day. I never begin to write without first asking their prayers. Our bond of love is unbroken.

Although I don’t dwell on the prospect of future goodbyes, and Kanki and Betsy both assure me they intend to live past age 20, I draw strength from the quote by C.S. Lewis (from The Four Loves):

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

I will choose the “danger” of love every time.

Are there any subjects preoccupying you that you would like to write about now. Are health issues a subject that interests you? Would you write more about your diabetes for instance?

It would be easier to list the paltry list of subjects in which I’m not interested! I am greedy to write about everything from the raisins in a good oatmeal cookie to the mystery of being seen and loved as we are. These days I feel great urgency to bear witness to light everywhere it can be found, to remind myself and others that mercy perseveres