Touched by “God’s Paw”

I remember the question as though it were yesterday, even though it was nearly 30 years ago. My daughter Kris, then about 7 years old, wanted to know why I was more sad about the death of our pet parakeet than I was about a relative who had recently died. The answer, I told her, was simple – I had never been close to the relative and hadn’t seen him in ages, while I had lived with the bird for 10 years.

Nucky was so laid back, he didn't mind a
lipstick smudge from one of Claudia's
smooches.

I remembered Kris’ question as Helen, her daughter Claudia and I said goodbye to our beloved cat Nucky. Nucky died in Helen’s arms last week, shortly after being hit by a car. There were lots of tears that night. That grey cat was so very affectionate, his loss left us with a hole in our home and an ache in our hearts.

Still, Nucky was just a cat, not a person. As Kris asked me so many years ago, I now asked myself – Why did the death of an animal affect me more than many of the people I’ve lost? The answer is more than proximity, and God’s fingerprints are all over it.  

Nucky, like many pets, cared chiefly about two things – food and love. Pets live to eat, to be loved, and to give love. Not much more. If you are a pet owner, you are probably smiling right now, maybe even nodding because, no matter how bad the day has been – or how bad you have been during the day – your pet still loves you. Unconditionally. Just like God. So maybe, just maybe, God uses these creatures to express his unconditional love for us.

It wasn't unusual for Lexie to join Nucky and me on the
couch  in the evenings, especially when Helen would snap
a surreptitious photo.

On the night before he died, Nucky did something out of character. For years, he would curl up in my lap each evening as I sat on the couch, and then fall asleep on my chest every night as I went to bed. Two habits repeated hundreds of times. That last night, though, just before I dozed off, Nucky did something he had never done before. He reached out and gently touched my face with his paw. His touch startled me fully awake and left me wondering why.

In retrospect, the question has changed. Now I wonder what Nucky was trying to tell me. Actually, because I don’t believe in coincidences, I’m wondering what God was trying to tell me. Does that sound strange? Well, Jesus used animals – birds of the air (Mt 6:26) – to illustrate God’s love for us. And didn’t he call us blessed when our eyes see and our ears hear (Mk 8:18, Mt 13:16)?

Yes, the God of the Universe is this incomprehensibly powerful, magnificent and distant being. But he is also an intimate father who is always within us and beside us, expressing his love for us through his spectacular sunsets, the sweet bouquet of his flowers, the joyful songs of his birds. And even the touch of unconditional love from our pets. We just need to pay attention. To see and to hear.

But it’s not natural for us to see and hear on that level. We have to fight through our human nature. (Read “original sin.”) We can’t really love unconditionally. Our egos – rooted in our primal sense of self-preservation – get in the way. We have expectations of others, especially those we love the most. Often, our loved ones don’t even realize we have those expectations of them. That’s when relationships get especially chafed.  

But we are also children of God, and the desire to love others unconditionally is planted in our spiritual DNA. We just have to recognize it. So the next time we see a sunset, enjoy a flower, hear a bird’s song – or are nuzzled by a pet – maybe we’ll be reminded to see beyond our own limitations to show our love to others as best we can.