Cat Therapy

While she was drawing a picture of her cat, the girl in my class told me stories about him. "He's a Maine coon cat. We got him from Craig's List. He was given away by two gay women because one of them discovered that she was allergic. His eyelids were operated on because they were too long. And both ears had surgery from blood bubbles in the veins, and now one ear flops down."

She and her mother had agreed that the only good thing the mother's boyfriend ever did was give them a lift to get the cat. She said her own eyelids were too small, you can tell they don't fully close when she is sleeping. Then she told me that one of her ears was torn off during her birth and had to be repaired by a plastic surgeon. I told her she had a lot in common with her cat. She hadn't thought of that, but liked the idea that she and her cat were both survivors.