Looking Back to 2007: Lessons of "The Way"

Lessons of "The Way"
Original post date: March 18, 2007

It's been over one week since my last blog post. I haven't had much time to write as I've been serving as a nursemaid to a very injured kitty cat. The newest addition to our family, Little Bit, was attacked by another cat and suffered a torn cornea of his right eye. For nearly a month we doctored him -- with assistance from our Vet -- trying to save his sight in this one eye.

In the end, no amount of medical treatment was sufficient and Friday he had his right eye surgically removed. He came home yesterday with stitches covering the socket where a eye once was. In two weeks, the stitches will be removed and Little Bit will look like he's always winking.

It's hard not to feel bad for this small animal. No one wants to see any member of the family suffer a lessening of one of their chief senses. I've been behaving something akin to a doting mother. My little kitty is rarely out of my sight -- he even goes on rides in my truck -- and I've become overly protective of him.

Yet, for all my worry, he seems to be adapting to his life change quite well. In fact, if you didn't know he no longer has a right eye, his behavior and personality haven't changed one wit. He stills chases objects across the kitchen floor, jumps up to high places on furniture (though he IS having to make some compensations for a loss of depth perception), he eats like a pig and likes to nuzzle come bedtime.

This is the path his life has taken and he has embraced it. I suspect that, unlike humans, he's not spending a lot of time considering the whys and what ifs. He's not bemoaning the cards he's been dealt. He's not mad at the world because it has treated him "unfairly".

In Little Bit, I've witnessed a primary lesson of Tao.

To read the intro to this retrospective series of posts, go here.