A Night's Rain

  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.