Fireside Chat - Artist's Statement

Artist’s Statement

            Choosing a story for this assignment was surprisingly difficult.  At first I thought I could do just about anything.  Then I stopped to think about what I really believe.  What experiences or stories could I draw upon to demonstrate my beliefs?  I found it was actually easier to look at the stories first and then examine them for meaning.  It seemed like a backwards approach, but it was what worked for me in the end.

            The story of the death of Felix the cat is rather typical.  The cat died and everybody was sad.  That’s all, right?  Nothing complicated about it.  Well, no.  It is kind of complicated.  I have lost pets before.  My family once owned a llama and I was present in his final hour.  I watched his last breath.  That affected me in a way, but not the same as with Felix.  Felix lived in the house.  He became a constant part of life.  Our family loved him because we got to know his personality.  He both annoyed us and brought us joy.  He was part of the family.  In the first half of my presentation I showed photos of Felix as I remembered him.  He was a normal cat.  I talked about his quirks and his personal connection with the individual members of the family.  I wanted the class to know that Felix worked his way into our hearts, despite most of us being rather anti-cat previous to owning him. 

            News of his passing was surprisingly hard for me to take.  I had been on my mission for over a year and hadn’t cried while reading and email since my first P-day in Brazil.  I didn’t have time to process it in my head; I just started weeping.  This moment, as I reflect on it, was possibly the most significant to the theme of my presentation.  I have often thought of myself as a rather cold and somewhat emotionally detached person.  On my mission I remember thinking that maybe I should be more happy about a person getting baptized or more sad about leaving a ward after 4 months.  I thought I wasn’t invested enough in the experience to care.  In some ways it was true.  I did the work, but was not as personable as most Elders.  Therefore I became close with only a few people.  How does this relate to Felix?  Well, his passing helped me remember that I have a heart.  It reminded me what it feels like to care deeply about someone.  It was a wake-up call of sorts. 

            In my presentation I showed photos taken by my sister the day Felix died.  She provided me with the only visual glimpse I ever had of that event.  Her photos tell the story of the change of heart experienced by my family.  Dad took the time to build a casket.  Jake went out to dig a hole in the frosty ground while snow was falling.   They bought roses and wrote personal notes on the casket lid.  I believe that love is well worth the risk (or rather, the inevitability) of loss.  It expands your heart and, in the case of my family, links you to each other.  We all shared the experience of Felix’s death, though two of us were abroad on missions.  The feeling was the same.  Together we had grown to love the cat, and our love and understanding for each other was increased in the process, though we may not have realized it until the day of his passing.