A Story With a Different Ending or a Cat With a Different Voice

Last week seems like a month ago, and I am now just beginning to put together the pieces of what the future with my Angel Nieces might look like.  We have fought so long and so hard to keep my brother's children in our lives that I am only just starting to come out from underneath the hundred pound weights which settled heavily upon my shoulders just a few months past two years ago on the day that my brother died.  And so the story continues with new characters(and I do mean characters), new plot lines and a whole lot of new bills to pay.  But I know, as I have always known, that I have the power to decide that if I do not like the ending, I will always have the capacity to change it.  And as the co-author, co-conspirator, co-pilot of my life, I can decide that this is not the way that the story is going to end.

There are still things left which must be sorted out.  But as for now, I can take some comfort in knowing that I will be seeing my nieces perform in their dance recitals in a couple of weeks, and then I will see them again at Angel Daughter Number Three's high school graduation at the end of the month.  There is more, but for now I will just say that nothing is court mandated, and that I can always continue forward with the case if need be.  And I do hope that need will not be.  But I certainly will not rule anything out.  Because when you live in my world, anything can happen.

For the first time in a very long time, my brother visited me in a dream last night.  All that I can remember is that he was very relaxed and very jovial.  And that I woke up laughing.  There are gifts that those whom we have lost, physically, can still give to us.  Visiting us in our dreams is one of those gifts.  Forcing us to appreciate the smaller pleasures that come after a very rough time, is another.  So here is Rex.  He is officially Angel Daughter Number Two's kitty.  Officially.  But he has been living with me for the past several months because AD2 is very busy with school and interning and life, and he was spending way too much time alone.  Cats are somewhat solitary creatures, but certainly not solitary enough to be left alone most of the time.  And so Rex came to spend some time with his grand-momma.

Most of the time we live parallel to one another, existing next to each other in the same space.  You see, we are pretty sure that Rexy is a feral cat meaning that he comes from a long line of strays who learned to fend for themselves without benefit of people-parents.  And as sweet as he is, he loves to bite in a playful manner.

Which still hurts.  He is learning to interact in different ways.  He has the cutest voice that I have ever heard in a kitty.  It is more of a higher-pitched "Purrrrupt" sound than a meow.  If he enters a room, he announces himself with this "Purrrrupt" and if someone talks to him, he answers with it.  We have a total of six cats as a family, but there is something about this little guy that makes me want to bother him.  I can't help it.  I find him irresistible.

Yesterday, instead of bothering him by trying to pet him, I spent some time observing him as he played, preened and finally napped on my bed.

Please enjoy this series of photos.  To me, it is one of those small pleasures that I mentioned before.  The kind of pleasure that can be enjoyed on even the most exhausting of days.

May you find a way to write or rewrite your own endings.

May you take the time to notice the gifts that, too often, race by unnoticed.

  And may you be blessed with dreams that cause you to wake up laughing.