Buwyeo ("boo-YAY-oh") got his name from a computer. A buddy of mine created a randomized name-generating program based on consonant and vowel patterns for a game we were playing at the time. When 'BUWYEO EV NIN' popped up, he laughed and wondered aloud what kind of person might sport a name like that. A Cat, I proposed, and vowed to christen one with that name someday. Until now, I had lived my adult life in one no-pet apartment after another, so the likelihood of this happening anytime soon seemed remote at best.

Shortly thereafter, I got married. My young wife and I encountered some strays while strolling home one evening. They seemed extra-friendly and followed us along the sidewalk for a while, but eventually pealed off into the bushes between buildings, meowing in farewell. All but one. This skinny, quirky, fuzzy, long-tailed, black one continued to follow us all the way to our no-pet apartment, crossing streets at our heels with his squeaky little 'meow'. My new wife, I soon learned, considered rules and restrictions nothing but minor irritants flavoring the fulfillment of her desires. And so, stupid in love, I conceded to allow the cat in.

He spent his first night with us climbing the walls — and windows — but quickly adjusted to his new life as a fugitive apartment cat. Another lesson I learned then: harboring an 'illegal' can quickly lead to eviction, but it suited us to move at the time all the same. So off we went to our next abode with our new little family member, Buwyeo Ev Nin, along for the ride.

He was a gentle soul, meowing like a squeaky bird – almost chirping – eager to follow, snuggle, and play. We once found him all huddled to himself like a fuzzy black loaf set inside our open-top, dry aquarium guinea pig 'cage' simply watching the terrified pigs huddle and twitch in the opposite end. He meant no harm. He just wanted to hang out. That was Buw. As lesser pets on the food chain would come and go, he consistently gave the impression that everything would simply be the greatest if everyone could just get along. He took dogs in stride this same way — just a kickback, easy-going cat. :-)

He also demonstrated virtually no feline grace that you might expect from a well-mannered cat. A window with no screen often proved particularly troublesome. He would forget about this happening last time, but still do it over and over. On the sill he would lounge, doze off in the warm sun, and not long after topple right out backward like a black flailing mop. He seemed to land all right, chirping his meows from outside as if inquiring what bus had just hit him...

Being The First of our cats, he acted as sort of a welcome wagon for each new arrival (Domino, Spike Boomerang) during his brief years with us. He ended up with my parents for a spell, then with my sister and her family, living in a relatively rural area around Prescott as time wore on. It was there that we believe Buwyeo met an untimely end ~ probably trying to kindle friendship with a passing coyote, knowing him. Though the details of his passing remains a mystery, he is remembered as a friendly, fun, and all-around groovy First Cat.

We rescued Domino from my sister-in-law who routinely forgot to feed her.  :-(  As a result, our first encounter with this diminutive kitten/cat was over a fresh bowl of kibble. She meowed to us while eating with a grateful, gleeful "meow-yow-yow!" Daily provision seemed to be a point of particular concern for her thereafter. And you couldn't go near her with any turkey on hand. She would leap right up and tear into it with fangs and claws (yes, even through tinfoil) snarling as if she were a 500-pound black bear. (I worried about losing fingers during the Holiday Season) She enjoyed playing fetch with little rubber Kooshball-looking toys we would flick into the next room, but generally demonstrated an attitude of minimal tolerance toward most humans, hissing and putting up a growling fuss when someone dared to pick her up or pet her a little. Once, she left a trail of turds across the kitchen floor when we brought a dog home for a visit, hissing and spitting all the way to our back bedroom. A little messy, perhaps, but oh so much fun... Domino retained her playful kitten-like demeanor through her entire life, and could demonstrate quite a sweet disposition when it suited her. . . She even scored a boyfriend at one point, which resulted in one (count`em: 1) kitten that she was barely big enough to give birth to! We let her raise the little Siamese hybrid for a while, calling him "FOFNR" (Frizzed Out For No Reason) . . but eventually gave him away to a good home — to a farm, if memory serves. Domino, now spayed, remained with us and didn't seem at all concerned over her offspring's absence. I think more than anything she was just sort of put out by the whole experience.

And such was her life until, one evening after her customary carousing about the neighborhood, we heard her meowing at our front door. Announcing herself in this manner was quite unusual. We opened the door to find our tiny little cat limping and bloody, one eye popped right out of its socket..! We took her in for immediate care, surmising that she had probably been smacked by a car ... but how wretched the poor little thing looked! Though her eye received proper attention and was saved, it would leak a continuous trail of tears down her cheek for the rest of her life as a slippery reminder of her close brush with death. She didn't wander so far from home after this, and cuddled more readily, but still growled in her own special way when disturbed.

Domino moved along with us during the first few years of our marriage, from Prescott to Flagstaff, eventually ending up with my parents when we relocated to Las Vegas. With them she enjoyed a lengthy retirement where she mostly just slept and glowered at people, favoring my mother's lap as her hammock of choice. She loved cuddling with my mother so much that my dad often referred to Domino as my mother's little mink scarf. Permanently miniature as cats go, she gradually grew older and frailer over time. The day finally came when, after manifesting a number of failing signs, she was unable to climb into my mother's lap. A sad visit to the vet brought her long life on earth to an end. Oddly enough, the one cat who started so badly and survived a brutal car strike ended up being our longest-living pet.

While growing up, I always seemed to have a friend or two who owned dogs named 'Spike' or 'Rex' or 'Fang' (all the greats) and I thought it might be just excellent to name a cat 'Spike' someday. This was our first ultra-cool cat. Oh sure, Buwyeo was sweet, and Domino feisty . . but Spike, he was just .. cool . . and fun . . one of the bets cats we've ever owned.

He came to us one day from a kitten box in front of a store where someone was just giving away kittens. We figure he must have been born sometime around when we had our first daughter, so that worked out pretty well, raising them together-like... Danielle would learn how to roll over and crawl, while Spike learned to drag himself upside-down with his claws along the length of the couch base. You could even start him off manually: just lay him on his back beneath one corner of the couch and off he would go! Danielle might knock out an hour in her hand-cranked swing (her favorite) while Spike curled up in her crib as if to keep it warm for her nap time. They were inseparable for most of his life.. probably because she found a ready playmate in Spike. She routinely dressed him up in doll clothes, and he just purred under her attentions. He was always game to play — with anything.. strings, rolling toys, your hand — and slept curled up next to us in the evenings. He lay on my lap while I wrote my first novel, leapt upon our feet twitching under the covers, and in the truest sense really became the mascot of our family.

Of all of our (soon to be) first four cats, Spike settled deepest into my soul. He was with us virtually for the birth of every one of our children. He moved with us over the years from Flagstaff, to Las Vegas, to Phoenix. He weathered the storms of our lives along with us: the highs of good community and phenomenal professional success, and when things weren't all that great. Other pets came and went, but Spike remained for almost our entire marriage.

As summer began in 2004, he suddenly fell ill. We could not discern why. A visit to our vet yielded no results... he was just failing for no apparent reason, getting lethargic and in obvious growing discomfort. He wouldn't play, wouldn't eat. Even moving about seemed tedious and woeful to him. Petting or carefully snuggling him seemed to bring no relief. We let this go on for a few days, at a total loss, hoping and praying that he might get better. But he didn't. And so, to alleviate his discomfort before what seemed an inglorious and inevitable end, we took him to the vet and had him gently put down. When that moment came, he just relaxed and eased into my arms like he used to do, seemingly so relieved to be finally free from the mysterious suffering he had endured. I cried my eyes out and buried ceremoniously him in the back yard. To this day I cannot fathom why his passing impacted me so profoundly . . perhaps because, in a way, he embodied those long years of our lives, the Season of Beginnings for our family: over a decade of our Home and Family. He had lived a good cat's life — long, varied, full of love and fun — but then, he had just gotten sick and died ~ and within months, so did our marriage.

About a year after Spike joined our family, my wife and her best friend found - what else? Another box of kittens out in front of a store! They came home with tiny orange kitten brothers. Being huge Disney fans, our friends named their kitten 'Simba' straightaway. As you might imagine, we could not settle on an original name for our new arrival — until nightfall. We heard little claws working up the side of our bed, and here comes this little orange & white fluffball meowing his tiny little meow, to cuddle right between us. After a while, I would move him to the side, but he would clamber right back up and over to get right in our faces . . So I scooped him up and lowered him to the floor. A few seconds later, claw-claw-claw and here he comes again, meowing away. He would not be deterred. I tried setting him up on the floor at the foot of our bed. Crinkle-claw-claw-snag, and up over the foot of the bed he came, all happy to be with us again. "He's just like a little boomerang," I said. And it stuck.

He was our Cuddler without a doubt —( capital 'C' )— the reigning champion cuddliest cat we've ever owned. If a human was in the room, Boomerang would either be on it or nearby in some manner, meowing congenially and purring. So it's really no wonder how Danielle (also a world-class snugglebug) and Boomerang made a perfect match together. Jessica too, I think, picked up her hugging and cuddling impulses from this cat. For a while there, my wife had her snitty little attitudinal cat Domino, I had my buddy Spike, and Danielle & Jessi had their snuggly Boomerang.

While our friends were out one day, some big renegade Malamute broke in through their pet door and found little Simba ... who didn't stand a chance. They found him mangled badly, and quite dead, and decided they would wait to get another kitten anytime soon. Boomerang was all who remained from his original family, so we watched over him carefully . . especially when the apartment sprinklers would catch him off-guard ...always a great thing to observe. He never wandered far from home, but always enjoyed just lounging in the cat tree I made for them, or playing with the other cats and, of course, cuddling. This was the cat Jessica dressed up the most.. kind of a rite of passage for our family cats, it would seem.

Our two girls grew older and began exploring the broader world of pet possibilities (guinea pigs, rabbits, and rats - oh my). So when a family friend voiced his desire for a companion cat for his new house, we thought of Boomerang, who seemed happy to oblige. And things worked out pretty well for a while this way . . until Boomer started shutting down, quietly, and in obvious pain. He shrank from being handled, and just lay together like a 'cat loaf' almost like a sphinx, eyes half-closed and very still. A visit to the vet confirmed that his kidneys were damaged beyond repair from something he ingested, possibly some leaked antifreeze from one of the neighborhood cars near our friend's house. There was nothing to be done but try to ease his pain... put we very soon had to put him to sleep, the poor guy . .. a faithful, sweet, wonderful cat ~

Grief-stricken as I was after Spike's passing, I was in no hurry to find a 'replacement' pet. A few months later, my wife and friends persuaded me to visit a cat shelter with them, "just to look around" they said, explaining how they hoped to find a kitten for themselves ~ so I went along. This was a great cat shelter, with lots of 'cat rooms' full of cat condo's, toys, cats and kittens. I found a mild-mannered orange kitten pretty quickly, and held it while strolling around from room to room. But my friends said that they had seen him first . . so reluctantly I handed him over, and sought out another pair of brothers I had noticed earlier: silver-striped tabbies. One was kind of mellow, nice, and pretty compliant. The other was pretty rowdy, tackling his brother and climbing everything he could find. That's the one I chose.

We brought him home and began observing him for any personality quirks or behaviors which might suggest a proper name, but nothing short of 'Spaz' seemed to fit. We considered 'Megatron' for a while, but that just didn't seem to apply.. My wife bred and sold Papillon puppies at the time, and happened to have a new litter on hand. They were still quite young and very small . . just the right size for a rambunctious kitten to leap upon!  He would spot one wobbling about, wiggle his little kitten butt, run and tackle it, bowling himself and his victim over which always produced startled puppy yelps. This only seemed to encourage him. Nobody got hurt, that much was obvious, and I thought it was great fun. One day I likened his actions to Godzilla attacking Tokyo ..and we had it!

Godzilla really picked up where his predecessor left off . . so packed full of personality and fun that I simply cannot imagine our family now without him! When he's not playing with his scratching post (seriously.. he plays with the scratching post!) you can find him splayed across the floor, belly to the sky, legs flailed any which way, or meowing in his talkative manner. He engages in conversations with humans. I'm not kidding .. a person could spend an hour or more yakkin' back and forth in meowspeak with Godzilla, and he would be right there with you the whole time in his conversational way . . (not that I've done that)

During the last few years when we had our two other cats, he would play with them all the time, fussing over who 'owned' the top shelf of the cat condo.. or Grandpa's chair.. or the couch .. or the bed . .. or floor tile . . . He struts around with his tail straight up, enjoys rolling in the dirt (then taking a nap on your bed), stalks through the back yard grass, and wrestles with the base of our trees. When he's in a particularly feisty mood, he attacks human feet, but only when you're walking. He always favored Danielle's feet for some reason ...

Godzilla is also quite the neighborhood watchman, hiding out in the neighbor's bushes or patrolling another's open garage. (Thank goodness he's fixed and doesn't spray!) When we come home, he runs to us with his tail cocked up, meowing in greeting all the way. In fact, it is true that he comes when you call. What kind of a cat does that?! And at night, after sprawling across our laps for some petting and snuggling, he usually sleeps by my side, getting up to stretch in the middle of the night only to lay right back down again until dawn.

Lately he's been having some minor health issues — nothing serious, but kind of a nuisance that seems to be remedied with a little medicinal attention. I guess that's how it goes as you get older... I'm just glad he's around, generally healthy and fit, especially after we lost our other two this summer . ..

Remember the orange kitten at the shelter I mentioned, the one our friends adopted? About a year later, their children developed an allergy to cat dander out of nowhere — bummer!  So they offered the kitten I had originally favored to our family now. Remember, these are our Disney Friends, so they had named their little orange kitten 'Oliver'.  :-)  In appreciation of their year of loving care and dedication for him, we decided to keep his original name instead of calling him 'Zoltron' or 'Flash' or something ..

Oliver turned out to be the most easy-going cat we've ever owned. Like Boomerang before him, he tended to be a homebody, and met us at the door without fail to be scooped up and carried around the house for a while by some willing soul. He had the uncanny quirk of following me into my bedroom, trotting a little ahead of me, then his joints would go all rubbery, he would take a twisty wobbly step or two, then collapse into the carpet as if shot with a rhino dart, uttering a friendly meow that said, "All right, now stop what you're doing and rub my furry belly." This generally always worked for him.

He was a very sweet cat, slept a lot all over the furniture, but got sort of weird when family or friends brought their dogs along for a visit. Not that dogs terrorized him or anything ...he just Preferred Other Company. To demonstrate his displeasure for such ill-mannered intruders, he would quietly pee in the bathroom sink. Or on a bed. Or in a kid's beanbag seat. Yes, Class And Dignity was his motto.

As congenial as he was with anyone who was not a dog, he was without a doubt primarily Andrea's pet. He slept with her at night, allowing her to misuse him during the day just about every way she could imagine (short of harm), which usually involved some form of dress-up and some unbecoming role-play scenarios. He put up with everything she dished out, quite often purring as part of the role, and never ceased to provide her with his breezy brand of feline companionship. Like 'Kitty Soft Paws' in the movie PUSS IN BOOTS, he had no front claws, but that didn't stop him from keeping up with Godzilla and Kitt. More often than not he would hold his ground on the couch when the other two would come around. He had no front claws, but he could * BAP! * another cat upside the head like nobody's business. Not that it hurt at all -- I think it just annoyed them enough to concede.

After cuddling with us on the couch one evening this past summer, he slipped outside for a rare twilight stroll around the yard. A couple hours later, a neighbor came banging on the front door asking if we own an orange cat. Oliver had been hit by a car... badly. Danielle held Andrea back while I rushed to the street and gathered him up, so broken and hurt and confused, yowling, blood splattered everywhere. I knew at once he would likely not survive the injuries I could plainly see.. All we could do for him would be to get him to the emergency vet to ease his pain as quickly as possible. That drive was a horrifying experience, with him howling terror-stricken in the carrier under Danielle's careful fingertips, his imploring face smearing blood all over, each one of us crying and praying for him... A quick examination at the vet confirmed it — he was just too broken in too many ways. A shot of morphine calmed him somewhat, but he was still practically blind (having lost an eye), confused, scared, and in great pain. The girls couldn't bring themselves to join me, so there in the exam room I kissed him through my tears and bid him a rushed farewell. One final shot, and he faded away...

I still wrestle with unease thinking about how God allowed our sweetest and most gentle cat to suffer such an horrific death. I don't blame Him for the busy streets of our new neighborhood, nor the fact that our cats refused to adapt to an indoor life after our recent move. What haunts me is how He allowed our poor sweet Oliver to endure such an assault, live through waves of pain, anguish, and confusion, for the better part of an hour or more (judging from the wandering blood trails all over the street I attempted to scrub away the next morning). If for whatever reason it was just "Oliver's time" then why not simply take him out quickly? A decisive strike and he could have been gone — just that quick — not this damaged-but-still-alive-until-your-body-just-quits-from-its-wounds nightmare . . . His yowls of agonizing and frightful confusion . . we couldn't help him at all . . . If such experiences rend the heart over a pet, how much more the lingering death of a beloved family member? I can't pretend to understand the ways and purposes of The Lord beyond what He clarifies through His Word (Isaiah 55:8-9). I know He grieves with us (John 11:35) and, yes, does allow atrocities for some reason. Yet He also demonstrates Real Protection and tender ongoing care, often (in my experiences) far past anything I ever could have hoped for or imagined . . . All I can conclude in such matters is: His heart grieves with ours, the Righteous must walk by faith (Hebrews 11:6), and we can trust that He will work all things for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28 & 32)

Speaking of God, it's almost impossible to remember Kitt without giving due credit to His amazing providence for my daughter. You see, when Jessi first decided to live with us full-time in the spring of 2008, she wanted a pet she could claim as her own. "Could we get another cat?" she asked. We already had two, so I said 'no'. "Can I at least pray about it?" she asked. I saw no harm in that. She described the kind of cat she wanted: a sleek all-black cat with green or gold eyes, and a long tail. This really happened . . .

A few nights after she began praying about this, an adolescent cat showed up out of nowhere in our back yard meowing at our glass arcadia door. The kids were in bed. I was completing a website at the time, so I approached the glass door and sort of shooed him away . . but he wouldn't leave. I had never seen this cat before around our neighborhood, but for some reason he Just Appeared and acted as though I should let him in as a matter of course. This went on for two or three evenings. He even made as if to enter the house through our pet door! Over breakfast one morning, I mentioned this to my girls and of course they lit up and asked if he were still around. I had no idea, so they ran outside and found him at once lounging on our roof under a tree bough. He had no collar, did not seem distressed in any way, so at length I agreed to have our vet check him out. He was given a clean bill of health, and my last argument collapsed 'neath the gaze of my children's pleading eyes.

Jessi named him 'Kitt'. We now owned three cats again for the first time in over a decade. None of us, including Jessica, had ever seen this cat in our neighborhood before, yet here he was exactly how Jessi had prayed for him. As you might imagine, she was thrilled at such a obvious and direct answer to her prayers, and loved Kitt like crazy. On a side note, I requested she start praying for a few other choice matters — but I sense that, if anything, God declared NICE TRY over my life and left the emphasis on this personal delivery for my daughter. I would do well to simply allow it. ~ Just so.

And what a personality this cat had! Like Buwyeo before him, he chirped with a tiny little meow that belied his size, but he wielded such a baleful stare, you would think he could turn you to stone should you inadvertently move a pillow the wrong way on the couch or something. He also liked to eat the tops off of waffles. Seriously. If he found a bit of leftover breakfast waffle on a plate, he would just take it upon himself to somehow shave off only the top half, neatly, as if run through a planer, leaving what appeared to be a freakish sort of early morning accident for us to recover. That was bizarre enough, but he was also pretty smart. After a time, he took to knocking over glasses to examine their contents when we weren't looking. That got un-cute real fast, but a little extra caution on our part still didn't detract from just how overall cool this cat was. Part of his winning allure (as backward as this seems even while I'm explaining it) was his gaze of annoyance if we ever caught him up to no good. He did not flinch in faux-guilt on our behalf. He just held that offended stare as if to ask, "What is YOUR problem?" And for some reason, this always cracked us up .. a cat from God packed to the ears with ATTITUDE! ~ but nice, all the same...

He was also our primary hunter. He could always land a pigeon, or find an occasional mouse, and the bugs, especially those big seasonal (kicking crunchy) grasshoppers — always with the bugs — and * lots * of lizards . . . Godzilla even picked up on a few his more successful techniques. Oliver, bless him, just sort of batted half-heartedly at whatever Kitt dragged in. But as cute and playful as our black cat was, he Really Did Not like anyone playing with his tail! It's so funny how even critters like cats can have such divergent personalities. Neither Godzilla nor Oliver minded that kind of attention - but Kitt would suffer your impertinence for only so long, cast a few recriminating daggers your way — never blinking, just all hot and offended — then he would get up, affronted, and leave. For some reason, we never ceased to delight in offending his personal space thus.

Yet even with his formidable claws — tried and true weapons at a predatory level — he never raked them on any of us, not even 'accidentally' while playing ..unlike Godzilla, for instance. In fact, in all his life the only time Kitt scratched anyone was while navigating one's leg from lap to foot table, and then slipping. It could be pretty bad if you were wearing shorts .. but he instinctively tried every which way not to lay into the leg supporting him. Tried, anyway... And when cuddling with a human, he had a certain way of looking up lovingly, then tucking his head into the crux of your elbow in the sweetest cat gesture ever .. .

He was a sudden blessing dropped into our lives at the prayerful request of my daughter, and almost as quickly his time on earth came to an end. We noticed him losing weight earlier this summer. Repeated trips to the vet included blood tests. It seemed his kidneys were failing. Medicine didn't make much difference . . he just drank water all the time, and really wouldn't eat anymore. He just threw up what little he ate. Being Kitt, he soldiered on and kept up a brave front, but you could tell he didn't rest comfortably, gently registered unease even in being held. An 'update' appointment had been scheduled for him weeks before, which just so happened to land three days after we lost Oliver. Danielle and I brought Kitt in for another blood test. The results came back worse than any before. His thinning body would begin breaking down in earnest if we let him go on this way, so we made the sad (but not unforeseen) decision to put him down this afternoon. We did not want to, but as responsible pet owners we simply could not allow what was happening to go on and get progressively worse until he died a painful death under a bush somewhere. Jessi and Andrea were away - it was just Danielle and I trying our best not to fall apart, saying our goodbyes to a wondering Kitt.

This time, it wasn't all desperate pain and panic like with Oliver just a few days prior . . No, the doctor administered a mild shot to 'mellow him out'. Despite the gravity of the moment, Kitt cracked us up even then as she gave him a smooth shot in his thigh. Obviously surprised, he clapped one of his glares on her and wouldn't let up! The vets came and went while Danielle and I stood beside him, but his stare followed the one who had pinched his behind... We chuckled through our tears, continuing to stroke him and love on him. Slowly, he took on a more relaxed demeanor as if to say, "Whoa, ok... I think I'll just lay down here for a while..." staring at the wall now with ever-dilating, but not alarmed, eyes. By the time the final shot was administered, slowly and with great care, he was as relaxed as a cat can be, I should think. And he just eased away so quietly, gently, resting in our embrace . . . until he was gone. Danielle sobbed that he looked so normal - - except for the obvious weight loss and test results spanning weeks. It is always heart-wrenching to have to do this sort thing, but knowing what he was quietly suffering, and knowing what was to come, it was time to let our gentle knight be at peace and rest at last with no pain, no confusion brought by failing health, nobody fussing with his tail, no worries at all...

It would seem that our cats have mainly passed away due to kidney afflictions (thought to be hereditary in Kitt's case). We feed them top-notch cat food and ensure they always have plenty of fresh water. I suppose domestic pets are just prone to certain urbanite ailments .. .

The morning after Oliver died, I got up early before my girls to try and scrub the blood from the street, and to rinse out our gory cat carrier. (A real Dad's job, as a friend later observed) Being in the thick of summer, it was already hot as I hurried to perform such thankless work. I disassembled the carrier, began cleaning it out, and without thinking began praying about the whole situation, wondering aloud at God's purpose in it all, wondering why He would allow Oliver to die in such a manner, wondering where His presence was in all of this awfulness. Blood, loosened with a bit of scrubbing, began to wash off into the grass. I ground my teeth, miserable in so many ways, scriptures popping to mind about His sovereignty, at His timing, methods, purposes. Sometimes in His drive to develop character and perseverance in us, He allows some pretty horrible things to occur. This is not a comfortable answer during times of pain and suffering, but it's the only answer He provides sometimes. Frustrated with all of this, I wiped the sweat from my face midway through my work and squinted up into the hot summer sky, asking aloud where was He in the midst of all this.

What happened next is kind of hard to describe . .. On my knees at the edge of our yard, a bloody sponge in one hand, part of the carrier in the other, a stiff and steady breeze slowly built up and poured into our back yard right then. But it was not one of those mid-summer oven-blast winds. No. This was a strong, cool, and steady gust ...and fragrant, like a full field of flowers just over an unseen rise. And it grew and grew, curiously, as if from nowhere — not a cloud in the sky — rising steadily in strength like nothing I have ever felt before. It continued to build steadily for about a full minute as I knelt there, staring up through a seam in the sky I could not see. And a pervading sense of peace and calm floated all over me along with the wind, blowing through my hair, swirling all about me. Trust me when I say I was in no mood for this. I was certainly not practicing any kind of 'positive-thinking' attitude. Far from it. I felt sour, hot, and angry. And then ... this ... washed over me out of nowhere just when I appealed to God. It was the strangest kind of moment, so soft and gentle, spiritually replenishing and clear... As lame as it might sound, a peace about Oliver and his place now settled into my heart. I can't explain it more than this.. It just happened this way. And after a few good deep breaths in the grip of this breeze, the cool wind eased down slowly just as it had swelled up. The summer folded back in on me and there I was - left to finish the work at hand.

This in itself might seem kind of good and decent on its own merit (if not a little trippy) — one of those strange little moments you sometimes experience in life but never think to talk about — but the real surprise came a few minutes later when the job was done and I went back inside to escape the heat. Danielle had gotten up so I joined her for a bowl of cereal. We didn't talk much after the previous evening's events. When at last I did speak, on a whim I shared with her what had happened out back. She seemed startled. "What time was that?" she asked. I guessed that it had to have been around 9:00am. She just smiled, explaining how she had been praying just at that time, asking God specifically to minister to me. And at that moment, the sky had opened up out back and let slip a restoring breeze that had done precisely that for me: mind, body, and soul.

What's more --- Andrea loves Build-a-Bear, going back to when she was old enough to crawl. Though she is perhaps getting a bit too old anymore for regular stops there, I hazarded a suggestion to see about getting an orange stuffy cat today, if she would like. I didn't know if she would accept such an idea, or just be hurt and cry all the more for her/our loss . .. but she nodded and said she would like that. Only while en-route there did it dawn on me that the store may not have an orange cat on hand, since they cycle their new critter stock with all the time! What a terrible thing - to have made such a suggestion as a well-meaning parent only to go there and find even so simple a thing denied her. ~ But wouldn't you know it ... as soon as we walked in, there on a middle shelf among all the cats and dogs, raccoons and owls (and who knows what else.. squirrels.. gorillas . .. aardvarks..) sat the perfect Orange Cat as if waiting there just for her! It may sound silly, but to me this was just another example of God's fingerprints touching the whole difficult situation.

Yes, our Loving Heavenly Father * does * allow trials — no doubt about that — but at the same time, He offers blessings and occasionally some Real Answers, or at least a sprinkling of clarity . . certainly Peace when you rely upon Him for it. Sometimes it comes in the form of an orange stuffy cat up on a shelf. Sometimes it takes the form of a inexplicable heart-refreshing breeze reminding us that He * IS * here right in the midst of our pain... that He really * is * in control. We may not understand it all, but we can trust the One who loves us through the darkness we are sometimes called to endure in this life.

Andrea took her 'new Oliver' with us everywhere after that, to the movies, dinner out with friends, and of course she sleeps with him at night. We still miss the Real Oliver, of course, and often remind each other of how he is likely making good use of claws he didn't have here on earth to climb trees like crazy in heaven! We imagine how he must have greeted Kitt when he slipped homeward three days later.. How they have probably met our other cats who have gone before them...

Godzilla is now the Last of the Mohicans in our home. Of course, my girls have asked if we can get a new kitten (or two!) but I think I'll wait before committing to any more cats for now ... get through the holidays and into the new year, at least. Then perhaps we'll see .. . Meanwhile, Godzilla is living the high life around here, wallowing in a family's worth of kitty cuddles, basking in a fountain of attention and affection. He spent a month or so meowing through the night in search of his buddies, but has finally seemed to realize they may be away for a while... And so we have all adapted to new routines concerning Godzilla as the only cat in our home for now. In every sense of the term... the dude abides.