lydy | So I learned something

I'm basically not a kid person. I approve of children in the abstract. In the concrete, I totally and passionately believe that they should be someone else's children. That they should be well treated, loved, cared for, and educated by Someone Else. I am completely happy to have my tax dollars go to schools and to nutrition programs for kids. I think that rearing happy, sane, functional children is a vital societal goal. But me, I don't want, never wanted, still do not want children. And I've always been a little (ok, a lot) dubious over the people that claim that bad things that happen to children is a worse tragedy than that some thing happening to an adult. I've had very little patience over the years with people arguing that children are somehow more precious, more important, more wonderful than adults.

So, then there's the Connecticut shootings.

Also, there's this. I just adopted two kittens. Me, I like cats a lot. And I fucking adore kittens. They are little fluff-for-brains, too cute to live, energetic, silly, marvelous, wonderful, infuriating, delightful creatures. I really, really, really love having kittens in the house. I have never been fond of the couplet "The problem with a kitten is that, eventually, it becomes a cat." Really, honestly, I love the process of watching kittens become cats. Develop habits, opinions, behaviors, personalities. I love the ways they wear little holes in your heart that they fit exactly. I love my big cats with an adoration that is hard to describe. There is something wonderful about the way that they become part of your daily life. (Quick side note: Pamela Dean is the only author I know of who can write about the wonder and magic of daily life and actually express it in ways that are commensurate with the way I live my life, and yet manage to capture the absolute beauty and marvel of it.) The thing people always say when you lose an old cat is "Well, she had a good life," and "She lived a good long, time." What this fails to note, in my opinion, is that the longer and better the life has been, the harder it is to lose it. All that history, all those shared experiences, that deep, wide, textured hole that they've worn in your heart, now empty.

Which brings me back, oddly, to Sandy Hook Elementary. They were five year olds. Six year olds. Really, the next best thing to kittens. And I thought about having someone shoot my little kittens, Ninja and Nuit. And what I would lose. I wouldn't lose those wonderful years of growing older and closer and nearer and dearer, I would lose the _possibility_ of those years. I wouldn't be losing a piece of my present and past. But I would be losing my future. Their future.

And it's a different kind of loss. It hurts differently. I'm not comfortable with saying it hurts worse or less worse, most especially since I haven't experienced it except as a thought experiment. But, it's different, and profound, and disturbing. And I begin to understand why people get so upset about losing children in a way I didn't understand before. It's not that I ever doubted the profound grief and loss people express. But, I now have a different handle on it.

I can't say I"m really pleased to have learned this. I'm not displeased, either. It's just a thing.

I am absolutely sure, however, that people shouldn't shoot little kids. Or kittens. This, I believe.