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  Mornings here have been cool to downright cold.  This morning was warm and welcoming.  I stepped outside and breathed deeply.  It would be a nice 5 1/2 mile ride to work.  I was already late because I am a newlywed and that should explain itself.  Having a job where you are not penalized for being late makes it difficult to get out the door at a certain time.  It's just hard to leave my beautiful wife in the morning so I dilly and I dally.  I got my bike and said bye to my girls, the four legged dog looking one and the two legged lady looking one.  I rode down the driveway when I normally cut through the trees.  I turned onto the road and my back tire slipped out on the sand and gravel left behind from the snow plows of last winter.  I was expecting this so it was fine.  But as I pulled out onto the road and set my eye's forward I saw her.  She looked as if she was just sleeping or stretching out asking to be petted.  But cats don't do that on the side of the road. 

  My cat had taken to spending more and more time outside a month or so before we got the dog and then after the dog she definately spent more time outside.  She would always come in at night when I called her, except for last night.  I am really not trying to dramatize what happened.  I didn't gasp or fall off my bike or anything.  I just sighed and kept riding.  Really, I did.  Then I thought about my wife and I didn't want her to see the cat as she was leaving for work and then not be able to do anything about it and have it distress her all day at work.  So I sighed again and turned around and peddled back up the driveway.  I walked into the house and Sonja gave me a beaming smile and said, "Miss me already!" as she threw her arms around me.  I did miss her already and I told her so.  But I was really just thinking what we had that I could put a cat in.  Then I was thinking how I would tell my wife.  So I just told her, "Fluffy is on the side of the road, I think I am going to put her in a paper bag because we don't have any boxes."  I went out and realized I didn't want to feel the dead weight of my cat in a bag.  So I went into our little storage shed I built and emptied something out of a box and took it down to the road.

  It was surprisingly hard to look at her.  I thought of Tyler and Christine who pray for the dead on a regular basis.  I wondered what they would say to me.  I felt like a puss.  It was just a cat.  Granted it was my cat and I have never seen it dead before, but it was still just a cat.  It still didn't help.  So I shoveled her off the the road and attemped to put her in the box but being stiff did not help.  That was the worst moment where I had to look away as I shoved my dead cat in the face with the end of a shovel to make her fit in a box.  I left her by where we take our garbage because I never had to dispose of a dead pet before.

  Through the days events and communications I found myself with my father at his house with a dead cat in the back of the car and a live dog between my legs.  Donning gloves, a digging bar and two shovels we went down with the same thought in our heads.  The ground is going to be really hard.  This is central California and we haven't had rain for months.  And we were not dissapointed, the ground was very hard, and filled with rocks.  I used the digging bar and my father used a shovel working harder than me.  I didn't want a ceremony or to "say a few words" I wanted to put my cat in the ground and cover it with the dusty red dirt of these foothills.  As soon as our hole was deep enough my dad simply flipped the box upside down and moved to the pile of dirt we had dug up and with two hands drug it into the hole.  No shovel, no words, nothing.  Just dirt.  It was exactly what I wanted.  When she was completely covered I thought how a more sentimental person who have said something or maybe put up a cross.  I looked around and grabbed a midsized boulder and heaved it ontop of the dirt.  Not for a memorial so much as to keep anything from digging it up.  And that was it.

  It's sad.  My cat before Fluffy was eaten by a mountain lion and I found her bones months later and that wasn't too sad.  I guess stuff like this happens.  I found myself thinking all the thoughts that people who lose a loved one think but on a small scale.  It was almost humorous.  Steven's cat was raised from the dead why not mine?  That kind of silly stuff.  Now I just need to get rid of a whole bag of cat food.  I need to pack away the cat toys in the hope of a kitten next spring.  *sigh*  So there ya go.

Light

  The light has filtered through the windows in the most peculiar ways these past 24 hours.  My wife, my darling wife, has frequently bemoaned the lack of light an sky here in our cottage but lately all I see is light.  I have laid in bed the majority of the time since yesterday afternoon, the time sickness laid it's vile gaze on me.  I have been able to appreciate the hours as they pass, I was able to see our little home shift as the day wears on.  Right now the light is coming through the open porch door and is hitting our cream colored bench that rests in front of our bed.  The result is a magnificent display of front lighting that would make a Hollywood lightman jealous.  It strikes the bench and splatters itself on the wall in front of it, bathing a whole corner of our house in light.  A light that is seemingly emanating from nothing but the wall itself. 

  The light has come through the windows in strategic rays meant just for us here.  Amidst the irrepresible stomach pain, agonizing legs and countless trips to the bathroom I have been able to appreciate the simplest of things.  I think, perhaps, we move too fast and don't see the things we are asking for.  Since we have moved into this cedar castle I don't remember this much light being present.  I move too fast, I have never sat (or laid) for a whole day and just appreciated the grandeur, safety and beauty of our little home.  We could even not have a home like so many.  I could be in the bush of Africa like I was so many years ago, writhing out my sickness in loneliness and uncertaintity.  But we have this house.  And I have an amazing wife who takes care of me.  We are rich, so rich.  Though my fever rages and my head pounds I am grateful.  Grateful for the love of my life.  Grateful for this place.  Grateful for the blood of Jesus that covers every infirmity.  And I am grateful for light.

The Redding I never knew existed