It was February. Days were still cold and dark. I was not enjoying work. I did not feel fulfilled, I did not feel like what I was spending so much time in doing mattered or was appreciated, or that I was living up to my potential. My heart was still bruised, struggling between moving on and longing for a past I'd only but with much effort and self-imposed resolution managed to finally put behind me. Loneliness was in check, but nonetheless constantly lurking behind the corners of my mind. The day I defended my doctoral thesis came with a furry ray of sunshine. Already the presence of both my parents and my best friend and their reassuring smiles and gestures constituted yet another reminder of my fortune. And then, as a congratulatory gift, came Popcorn.
She did not have to do much to win me over. She was beautiful, soft, delicate, and very much alive. Shy at first, she broke my heart running away from me, shrieking and shaking, to hide behind the trash can the first time I tried to end an out-cage excursion. She was terrified. I remember feeling helpless at what seemed to me an unconquerable barrier ―her and I both living in opposite worlds of cognition and size―, keeping me from making her understand how harm was the last of my intentions. Despite the initial terror, time and trust allowed her to become a bundle of the purest confident gentleness and innocence, not once biting in fear or aggression. Stared at with the appropriate sharpness, her at first glance homogenously black eyes rewarded me with the endearing delineation between pupil and iris. Nibbling passionately at her food, always held firmly between her front paws in an almost anthropomorphic fashion, she never failed to charm my friends as well. I often found myself smiling broadly or even laughing out loud in the quietude of my small apartment at the sight of her unraveling, never-satisfied bold curiosity. I learned to appreciate the sound of her little feet frantically tapping on the wooden floor, as she was on a perpetual, determined mission whose aim only she knew. Reckless, relentless. There was not a piece of furniture high enough to scare her from performing her back-to-wall climbing technique. She conquered everything, from the windowsill, to the top of the wardrobe, to my heart. She left no uncharted territory.
My life has changed in the last year and a half ―subtly externally, but quite significatively on the inside. I am happy at work, I have found joy in new behaviors and habits, new hobbies, wonderful new friends. The ache my heart was enduring is now but a memory. Days have been cold and dark. But at some point along the road, they have gradually started becoming warmer and brighter. At the end of each of them, she was the one beating heart waiting for me at home, and the responsibility of taking care of her ―keeping her alive and healthy― was invariably present. Through the course of one and a half years, every change I have been through, all bridges crossed to get here, Popcorn has been my sweet little companion.
My eyes have intermittently been swelling up with tears today. I cannot talk about her without my voice breaking. I know already I will miss her ―her nightly frenzy featuring the tapping, scratching, squeaking and gnawing noises that drove me crazy at first, but ended up becoming the most familiar soundtrack to my evenings and to the journey into my dreams every night. It is amazing how much you can love something so tiny. Illustratively speaking, even my heart is bigger than her. But maybe that is why she fits there so perfectly.
