The Latest Cat Saga

For a couple of months, we've been complaining about the cats.  In August 2011, Philip got two kittens from the Christopher family, naming them Toby and Tico.  Turned out Toby was the girl and Tico the boy, but that didn't bother him.  In fact, he was inspired to build a scratching post,

a cat house and a catwalk around the roof of the garage.  They were sweet and cute and playful and spent some time indoors (a first for our farm family), and Toby started showing signs of expecting more kittens in the spring.  While we vacationed in California, she gave birth - possibly to only one kitten, possibly to more who didn't live.  Inbreeding, I suspected.  Naranja, an (obviously) orange kitten, was sweet and cute and playful.  Philip had lots of fun with him, as Tico had disappeared in a tomcat sort of way (he showed up once with a bullet in his leg, but once he could hop and leap about with only three legs, he was gone again).  Soon Toby looked like a pregnant mama once again.  We were not thrilled.

A few days before David's wedding, Naranja started acting very strangely, having what looked like seizures or choking.  Within ten minutes he died in a crying Philip's arms.    We buried him, consoled by the kittens to come.  While we celebrated with the happy couple in North Dakota, the kittens arrived - five of them!  They were sweet and cute and playful, but there were so many.  Philip manfully named them all - Huck, Rex, Smoky, Gypsy and Padfoot.

 We dealt with the litter training and taming - they really were fun.  By bringing them to a 4-H meeting, we managed to give away two of the females, leaving us with Rex and Smoky, males; and female Gypsy.  Philip decided he wanted to keep one kitten and Toby; we decided they would be fixed, so no more kittens would be spawned.  At first we planned to keep Gypsy, but Rex soon endeared himself to us as a calmer, friendlier cat, so we settled on him.  Alas, it was not to be.

On Wednesday, Pete and I returned from a meeting at church to find the dogs barking at Rex.  Whether Rex was being a male and bristling, whether the dogs smelled something else on him, or whether there was some other explanation, we don't know.  Pete drove to the mailbox, and when he parked in the garage, he heard Rex meowing under the van.  Did the dogs shake him and break his spine, or did he race under the vehicle and get run over?  In either case, he had no control over his hind section.  He didn't appear to be in pain as he quietly lay in the laundry room, and died about an hour later, as Pete was preparing to put him down.

Philip and I cried over Rex, and realized that we really don't want to see the cats dead, as we had been joking about.  We're not complaining about the cats now.  How often we take things for granted, when nothing is for certain in this life.  Thanks be to God that He is certain, and so is the next life!

You Never Know

On Oct. 18, my hairdresser's husband woke up with blood in his stool, and he's been bleeding ever since with colitis. The doctor has prescribed numerous medications, none of which has helped for long. It's all they think about or talk about, except when their three little children need attention (which, blessedly, is often). Now he's going to try fasting for a few days and then slowly reintroducing foods one at a time to see if he can get a handle on it without medications. A healthy man all his life, he has no template to handle the inconvenience of it all (he has been able to continue working), but more than that, the fear. What will be the outcome?

A shirttail relative is scheduled for surgery on Wednesday after about six weeks of battling some colon problem. He's been in and out of the hospital; for the last week he has had no food OR WATER, with no results. Says he, "I'd kill for a piece of pizza!" The doctor's best hope is for a temporary colostomy, I assume as opposed to a permanent one; what they will see when they open him up is unknown. Again, what will be the outcome?

On the other end of the surprise spectrum is one of our missionary couples. They have been trying to conceive for years, and she had a surgery to fix something in the fall. They decided to wait until March and then pursue adoption. They've known she was pregnant for a few weeks, and she was spotting and cramping so they were sure she was miscarrying - again. But at their recent appointment, the heartbeat was strong and the baby is perfectly healthy! Praise God! But once again, what will be the outcome?

You never know what will happen tomorrow to change your life, for better or worse. All we can do is walk with God today and trust Him for tomorrow, because He's the only one who knows.