What a great story Una.
I don't know what animal would be me. But here's a story that I instantly remembered.
While still living in England, my friends and I had a book club, and I loved those get-togehers. These were mostly my mum-friends from the ante-natal course before our babies were born, and most of our conversations were revolving around kids, but having a book club brought another dimension to our lives. It was also nice that the book club group grew organically, as we brought our other friends in it and the circle gradually increased.
In February we read "Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman (the book has been made into a film "The Golden Compass"). This was a kind of book I'd never pick myself, but was so glad we read it as I enjoyed the writing style so much, as well such an unusual story and wonderful characters. Without uncovering too much, I'll just mention that in the book all humans have a deamon - an animal that forms another part of their being, is their friend and is also their confidante, advisor, their other self.
During our discussion we talked about what animal would be our own demons. This is what your question reminded me of. (And most of us had no idea what our deamons would be, but felt that if it could be other humans, than our husbands or partners had fit the description.)
Later that same evening when the discussion moved away from the books to general stuff, I told my friends that I'd be moving away in three months, as in that week things started to finalize with our plans so we could start telling everyone. These were big news, as was to be expected. What I found interesting were the reactions of my friends, very telling of their individual characters and our own individual relationships. The one who was the quietest was J., the look of shock and confusion on her face was so big that she just looked through me, not at me for the rest of the evening.
Tomorrow night she had send me an email. It was short and beautiful, simple and unpretentious, all the thoughts I could see she was trying to come to terms with the night before were in it, but digested through.
She ended her email with "By the way, I think your daemon would be a cat ..." and she went on why she thought so in such a way that I get goosebumps just remembering it.
Whether or not I'm a cat she described I don't know, but I'll always be grateful to her for that outpour of emotions.
And thank you for prompting me to remember this episode...
