A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often – just to save it from drying out completely.
Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, singers of songs.
Kittens are wide-eyed, soft and sweet. With needles in their jaws and feet.
In loneliness, in sickness, in confusion-the mere knowledge of friendship makes it possible to endure, even if the friend is powerless to help. It is enough that they exist. Friendship is not diminished by distance or time, by imprisonment or war, by suffering or silence. It is in these things that it roots most deeply. It is from these things that it flowers.
We shared. Parents. Home. Pets. Celebrations. Catastrophes. Secrets. And the threads of our experience became so interwoven that we are linked. I can never be utterly lonely, knowing you share the planet.
One small cat changes coming home to an empty house to coming home.
An older sister is a friend and defender – a listener, conspirator, a counsellor and a sharer of delights. And sorrows too.
A friend is the only person you will let into the house when you are Turning Out Drawers.
When sisters stand shoulder to shoulder, who stands a chance against us?
A horse is the projection of peoples’ dreams about themselves – strong, powerful, beautiful – and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence.
Sisters annoy, interfere, criticize. Indulge in monumental sulks, in huffs, in snide remarks. Borrow. Break. Monopolize the bathroom. Are always underfoot. But if catastrophe should strike, sisters are there. Defending you against all comers.
If there is a heaven, it’s certain our animals are to be there. Their lives become so interwoven with our own, it would take more than an archangel to detangle them.
Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you’re just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric.
If your sister is in a tearing hurry to go out and cannot catch your eye, she’s wearing your best sweater.
It’s hard to be responsible, adult and sensible all the time. How good it is to have a sister whose heart is as young as your own.
Sisters don’t need words. They have perfected a language of snarls and smiles and frowns and winks – expressions of shocked surprise and incredulity and disbelief. Sniffs and snorts and gasps and sighs – that can undermine any tale you’re telling.
Always smile back at little children. To ignore them is to destroy their belief that the world is good.
Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.
If you’ve only one breath left, use it to say thank you.
Thank you for being interested. Doesn’t sound much but it meant just about everything.
A cat can maintain a position of curled up somnolence on your knee until you are nearly upright. To the last minute she hopes your conscience will get the better of you and you will settle down again.
A cat is a regency gentleman–elegant of pose, exquisite of manner, with spotless linen and an enthusiasm for bare knuckle fights, rampaging love affairs, duels by moonlight and the singing of glees. He expects immaculate service from his domestic staff, and possesses a range of invective that would make a navy blanch.
Mothers are the pivot on which the family spins,
Mothers are the pivot on which the world spins.
A younger sister is someone to use as a guinea-pig in trying sledges and experimental go-carts. Someone to send on messages to Mum. But someone who needs you – who comes to you with bumped heads, grazed knees, tales of persecution. Someone who trusts you to defend her. Someone who thinks you know the answers to almost everything.
For the sake of the sons – and even for the son’s future wives – a woman must keep a part of her mind and heart entirely for herself. Every family is better off with a wife and mother who can astonish and occasionally dewilder.
