What a kitten will teach you about the preciousness of life

Many of you know that I just recently had a calamity with my calico kitten, Sissy, named after a daughter of a close friend of mine who passed away (Sicily). She became sick about 7 days ago, though it was so subtle, at first I didn't notice she was really getting sick. Everything changed when she refused to play with even her most precious of toys.

Fast forward to me having to take off work because she was so sick, so listless, I was certain she was sick unto death.

The most profound things I remember during the time she was sick - 1) she was way too young to leave me, 2) I wasn't at all prepared to be without her despite only having her 3 months, 3) and if she made it through this, she was going to be the most spoiled cat that felinedom ever met.

Fast forward to now - she is recovering, she is not yet back to herself, but she is guaranteed to mine for more birthdays. And I get to reflect on how precious they are... birthdays. See, to pets we are immortal, they know us their entire life, and their lives are so short that we don't seem to change at all during their lives. But we know that we don't have them forever. For anyone that has dogs that are over 10 years old, we are already acutely aware that birthdays are not promised.

But we need to have the same perspective with our human loved ones. Tomorrow is not promised, birthdays sure as heck are NOT promised and there is so much mid-level frustration that we need to learn to let go of - or someday we will have to deal that when they left us suddenly, that mid-level frustration is all we had.

We say, "tell the ones that you love them because tomorrow may be too late," but I am here to say, SHOW them you love them so if they are suddenly not there, you don't have to regret your last memories. I get tired of folks not understanding that most of the crap that we think is so important becomes MEANINGLESS in the fact of the end of someone's life. Hold on to what IS important, your words, your hugs and the memories you need to never wait until tomorrow to make.

Like the song says, "if you got a chance, take it, take it while you got the chance. If you got a dream, chase it cause a dream won't chase you back." More of us need to remember a dream we all have, but few chase - solid loving relationships that leave nothing to wonder if someone is suddenly not there.

Not only are YOU more... so are they.