Gwen Cooper adopted a blind kitten who lost its eyes because of an infection. She wrote about what happened next in Homer’s Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat.
She took the kitten home and named him Homer, rightly assuming that life with him would be a type of odyssey. But little could she have imagined the character that she would encounter behind Homer’s odd, eyeless facade. The little cat (he never grew to be more than 3 pounds) turned out to be a daredevil, a spitfire, and a passionate lover. Homer, who of course had no way of knowing that he was blind, simply assumed it was normal to navigate fearlessly in the dark, lunge five feet into the air to capture flies in his mouth, and hurl himself onto the top shelves of closets for entertainment. He also assumed it was normal to enthusiastically befriend all he met, in addition to becoming an eager, adoring, gallant beau to Cooper.
Our orange tabby Jane isn’t blind, but she’s fearless too. We call her Mordor, Destroyer of Worlds. We could learn something from cats about what is normal and how to navigate in the dark.
