I say this to my cat most days.
I said it the first time without forethought.
I saw the curl of her self on the ottoman in front of me, leaned irresistibly to stroke her, and whispered, in awe, “You are perfect.”
I have made myself insane for years seeking absolute truths, debating the presence or achievability of perfection.
Then here’s a cat, an older stray from the Humane Society at that, not an ardently reared purebred, asleep in my office, and what I seek is here.
I wouldn’t change the mismatched tints of her eyes, the body-and-a-half length of her tail, the circle of her protruding lower lip.
I wouldn’t change her inner workings. I am sorry she suffers. Most cats run. She and I have a system. She sits up in discomfort, I lean over her, my hands opening as if from prayer. I catch her upset. I rinse my hands, she grooms, we settle back into our lives.
She is herself. Therefore, she is perfect.
Having never had a child, I cannot know if human parents see their human children as perfect, if they accept the who and how of a child’s existence as the wholeness of the child’s occurrence on the planet.
I might have wanted to change a human child, to wish the child were different in some way, to urge the child to be other than he or she was in order to serve me in some way, to reflect well on me, or to gain some advantage in the world.
I think that might be natural in a parent, or at least natural in a contemporary American parent.
By wanting to change the child, I would have missed the perfection of the child.
