My mind wants to
weave in and out of scenes and scenarios that at first seem random.
Just after dawn, one
gray winter morning a few days ago, I sat on the deck behind my house. The cat
we call “Rain” had jumped onto my lap and proceeded to kneed my leg, as cats
will do. She purred that guttural whir as I softly drew my cupped palm down the
length of her satin fur.
The world was wet
from the night’s rain. A dove called in the distance leading me to mindfulness
of the bird’s morning symphony.
I had found Rain
one morning in weather much like this damp cold. She appeared near death
and drenched, so small my index finger touched my thumb as I grasped around the trunk of her emaciated body. I placed her on my
shoulder. Kitten claws sank into my flesh. I walked the two miles home grimacing through her panic.
We eventually
discovered she had a bad eye. You could'nt tell at first. I
learned that animals would abandon offspring sometimes if something is wrong
with it.
She has always been skittish with a tendency to bite or claw out of the blue. I was wondering why she had jumped in my lap. She was looking at me
with her now obvious one good eye as if to ask something.
She reached up
with a paw and touched my lips, purring steadily all the while.
“Thank you,” she
seemed to say. “Thank you for saving me. I’m healthy and have a good life
because you held on to me in my fear and anger. You let me stay even though I
attacked you. You did not give up on me so now I am here, beautiful, strong and
capable.”
So I sit here now
writing this. I know it’s a stretch but I find it all quite real, you see. It’s
as real as the prayer that lives in my heart each day as I reach up to the sky
and thank God for saving ME.
