Let it Flow

One of my favorite places on earth is the garden surrounding our house. And one of the things that makes that space feel like home is the stray cat Boots that adopted us when we moved in two years ago. Every day he lazed in the sunny spots under the palm trees and greeted me from behind the rose bushes in the afternoons, waiting to be fed. He was ever-present and trusted us, though we never got closer than 3 feet from each other.

The last few weeks he’s been limping, and last Saturday he showed up in the morning looking very rough. Immediately I knew in my bones that this poor animal was not long for this world.

And as we captured him and put him in a box and took him to the vet and waited for a diagnosis, I felt this internal resistance against what I knew was coming. I fought the inevitable all day - maybe he’ll be okay, maybe we can try to nurse him back to health, maybe, maybe, maybe.

But once I accepted that this creature was in pain and we could offer respite from it, I felt that internal resistance drop away. I allowed myself to be carried forward through the hard moments of saying goodbye on the energy that had been moving that direction all day.

We cannot stop loss or death from occurring. Every day we are living to die. Someday that final moment of surrender will come for each of us. I don’t write this to bum you out. I write this, because there will come a time when we will not be able to force our expectations on the world, where we will not be able to get the outcome we want. Learning to surrender to what is, to accept loss and death as part of this big experience of life, that’s why we’re here.