My "people-hating" father's clumsy kindness: A cat revealed his true self

When interacting with animals, I feel like you see "a side of a person" that you don't see when they're with other people. My father is not good at socializing. He's rude and says, "I don't want any friends," and generally dislikes people. But when he interacts with cats, he's a completely different person. When I see him like that, I feel like I'm touching the true nature of his kindness.

My Rude Father's Enduring Atonement for His Beloved Dog

My father was originally a dog person. Before I was born, my family apparently lived with a dog. There were pictures in an old album of my father smiling with his beloved dog.

Why did they stop living with a dog? I wondered about this, and one day I asked my mother. According to her, the dog choked on its favorite chikuwa snack, which my father had given it as usual, and died.

My father, who cried and blamed himself, saying, "It's my fault...", decided he would never own another dog. That seems to have been his atonement.

So then why did they later start taking in cats? When I asked my mother this question, she gave me an unexpected answer: "Someone from his company gave us a Siamese cat."

That Siamese cat, named Mimi, was a mix, a hybrid, so her original owner had given her up. My father apparently thought it was pitiful that she had nowhere to go, so he took Mimi in.

When I heard that story, I learned about the profound depth of a person. The father I knew was rough-spoken, and even when I cried in my student days, he would say things like, "Are you crying over something like that?" He was the kind of person who disparaged people's tears.

Since I only knew that side of my father, I was surprised that he had the capacity to cherish and grieve for living things, and at the same time, I thought, "People truly are multifaceted creatures."

My Father's Awkwardness: Unable to Say He Wanted a Cat Himself

At my parents' house, there was a strange rule: when one cat died, another would arrive. So, there was never a period when there wasn't a cat at home.

Cats always appeared suddenly. Sometimes, I'd hear a cat crying at night, and the next day, one would be sitting in the garden. When this happened, my father would sprinkle water in the garden, carefully avoiding the cat directly, and shoo it away, saying, "We can't keep you."

Every time I saw this customary behavior when a cat arrived, as a child, I would always beg, "Poor thing! Let's keep it." My father would continue sprinkling water for about two days, but if the cat still didn't stop coming to the garden, he would suddenly ask me, "...Do you want to keep a cat?"

When I answered "Yes!", he would gruffly say, "Go prepare some food," and stop watering, immediately switching to "welcoming" mode.

Asking me "do you want to keep it" before bringing one in was probably his own excuse. I think some emotion prevented him from saying "I want to keep it" himself, so he would take in cats with the excuse, "My child said they wanted one, so I had no choice..."

As a child, I found my father's awkwardness perplexing. But now that I'm an adult, I think I understand a little better. My father, who has probably continued to carry the guilt of having caused the death of his beloved dog, may have convinced himself that he was not qualified to "want" an animal out of his own ego.

Perhaps my father isn't simply a crude person. Looking at him through the filter of cats, I see a vulnerability and kindness in him that I never knew before, and it fills me with a strange feeling.

The "Real Face" My Father, Whom I Thought Was Cold, Shows Only to Cats

Looking back, I feel like it was also my father who taught me the preciousness of an animal's life. When I said I wanted to take in a cat that came to the garden, or when I picked up a cat that had been abandoned in a shopping mall parking lot, my father would always say to me in a strong tone, "Animals live for decades, you know?"

His tone at those times was always so harsh that as a child, I sometimes felt annoyed, thinking, "You don't have to say it like that!" But now that I'm an adult, I'm glad I received that kind of education.

Because my father repeatedly cautioned me each time we took in a cat, and even as a child, I vaguely considered "the weight of a life that lives for decades," I didn't become someone who takes in animals carelessly, and I also avoided becoming someone who treats animals like accessories.

Even as an adult, my father is still as brusque and outspoken as ever. But to the cats at home and my own cat, he speaks in a cooing voice that he would never use otherwise.

There was a time when my cat was in trouble, and my father immediately said, "Okay," and accompanied me to the animal hospital, waiting with me for hours for the test results. When I was little, I just thought he was a "cold person," but perhaps he's just an awkward person who doesn't know how to express kindness.

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