Those born with the gift of nurturing begin the practice early.

We carefully study our parents to see how it’s done, then take great care of dolls, family pets, even siblings. We look forward to the day when we too will have the house, spouse, and children into whom we can invest our joie-de-vivre, hard-won wisdom, and even favorite recipes.  Someday, we imagine, we will guide our children on magical discoveries:

Caterpillars become butterflies.

Those low twinkles are lightning bugs, and you can hold one.

Every rain is followed by a rainbow.

…and we will gently hold them through the hard lessons:

Even the sun goes to bed.

Butterflies and lightning bugs go away for a season.

Every rainbow follows rain.

Seasons turn to years as we continue to watch for the one who will walk beside us in the fulfillment of this dream.  Some find their companions early, some late, and some…never.  In the meantime, we continue our practice on surrogates – other peoples’ children – babysitting and buying for nieces and nephews, cherished friends, and pouring our creativity into sunday school classes or scouting troops.  We share with their parents the ecstasy of first words, first steps, first holidays… we share in the concern over fevers and broken bones and broken hearts…  always with the reminder that, though we may love them like our own, they really are someone else’s children.

Enter the ‘spinster paradigm’ – the single person with the car, career, house, and three cats.   While three cats and a rocking chair is the classic joke setup, sometimes these take the form of one or more dogs.  Whatever the form, there’s someone to miss you when you’re gone and greet you when you get home.  We feed, clean up, train, and entertain these furry friends, hold them in our arms, take them to the vet, and make deliberate arrangements for their social lives.  They read us as well as we read them, sometimes better.  We learn each others’ rhythms and emotions, and respond accordingly with an ear scratch, a head on the lap, or both.  The lines between pet and master get blurred when they insist on getting fed, being let out, or avoiding the bath.

We do realize that they can’t perceive rainbows, don’t follow the progression of caterpillar to butterfly, and that we really don’t want them to catch lightning bugs (spiders? well, that’s another matter).  We know they won’t pass our stories and wisdom on to the next generation after them, other than some brief instructional help on how to operate the pet door and where not to poop.  We know, though we avoid the thought as long as possible, that we will most likely outlive them.

When that day comes, we ask one thing of you who have human companions and children of your own.  We ask that you keep to yourself the harsh truth that these furry friends on four legs are not our equals.  For us, they are surrogates, the closest we will ever have to that blessed gift –

for us, they are our children.