A cat named Flower

  Worrying about the cat, I decided to walk down to the lake to watch the sunset and cheer myself up. As I approached the deck with a book, I saw an Asian lady with what looked like a very fluffy little dog in a harness, but as I got closer to her, I discovered that it was the fattest, fluffiest, cutest cat I had seen. I smiled a few times and walked over to the deck to sit down and read. The lady with the cat came and sat a few chairs along from me and I couldn’t help but stare at her cat and smile uncontrollably. A few moments later the cat had crawled through the fence, and the lady was unable to pull it back through. I walked over and asked if she needed help… she whispered, ‘I think so’, and a lady who was reading on the other side also approached to help. She held the leash while the cat owner dashed around to the other side to gather her cat.  The three of us ended up having a conversation for a while. The cat’s name is ‘Flower’ and has just arrived with her owner from China after a long stopover in Korea… thus described as very brave. She was very calm and let the two strangers, the lady and me, stroke her without blinking an eye. 

       This little event gave me a dose of love for people and animals and the random connections that we make… the care that we feel for each other. It also served as a reminder of how we are all on different paths and trips and travels with hopes and goals and dreams. We are all knocked down and hurt as we fail or suffer loss but, in most cases, we are able to get back up and continue. It also made me contemplate how most of us tend to overcomplicate our lives in search of some dream… and do we end up in the right place? How can we ever know? What I do know is that the world needs more kindness. It needs less people cheating and bribing and scamming. We also need to stop comparing ourselves to others and feeling sad or envious that they earn more or have more or appear to have achieved more.