Going With The Flow

Please Share on Facebook

or Email to a Friend

My Good friend Marjory recently sent me the story below. No, it’s not directly related to meditation or spiritual growth, until you look below the surface and see how the principles apply to your own life. In the story you will read how Marjory ‘goes with the flow’ (with a warm heart) and what the results are for her.

Our life path is not always able to be strategically plotted and followed precisely. Often, great delight and companionship can occur as the result of chance.

How We Got Captain

In the summer of 1998 my daughter, Mahjabeen, was between seventh and eighth grades and had two very close girlfriends, Melody and Jenny. My husband was out of the country, and I was routinely ignoring his no-animals-in-the-house rule by letting in the neighbor’s outdoor cat, Georgie. Georgie’s owner had moved and given Georgie to our next-door neighbor, Rosa, who fed him on her front porch but never fully earned his trust.

Now Hurricane Mitch, having ravaged Nicaragua with tremendous destruction, was wobbling back across the Gulf of Mexico in weakened form, headed for South Florida. Rosa appeared at my door with a couple of cans of cat food and a bag of what she thought was cat litter but was actually the other kind of litter, the pine shavings you line the cages of hamsters, etc., with. “Georgie won’t come into my house, but I know he goes into yours,” Rosa said. “Will you keep him over the hurricane?” “Of course,” I said.

Melody’s family lived right along Biscayne Bay, so their hurricane plan was to take refuge in a hotel in Orlando. That meant I had to take over their pets. Melody’s mother had me buy a small birdcage and come to their condo. I took Melody’s two parrots (who normally lived in a large parrot cage), a dish with Melody’s younger sister Harmony’s two little turtles, and Melody’s recently acquired, not-yet-housebroken beagle puppy, Angel. (Angel was male; in Latin culture, Angel is a boy’s name.)

When Jenny came to know that my house had become an ad hoc animal shelter, she told us that her father wouldn’t let her bring her outdoor cat, Baby, into the house even for the hurricane, and she couldn’t bear the thought of Baby, during the storm, cowering under their house (they had an old-style wooden house raised off the ground). “If I give Baby a flea bath,” Jenny asked me, “can she stay with you?” “By all means,” I said. Then Jenny, who had often slept over at our house, said, “I can’t bear the thought of riding out the storm cooped up with my obnoxious older brother. May I stay with you?” “Sure,” I said.

When the wind had just begun to pick up, Mahjabeen said, “Mom, there’s an orange cat with a cut-off tail that I often see up the street. I don’t know if he has any place to go during the hurricane. May I bring him in?” “Okay,” I said.

I put Angel on the screened back porch during the daytime, and he slept at night in a carrier in Mahjabeen’s room. The parrot cage and turtle dish went into the laundry room. My main concern was to keep the cats away from each other lest they fight. I put Georgie in the guest bedroom where Jenny was staying. As soon as the wind rose, he hid under the bed and wouldn’t come out until the storm was over. Baby was initially in the den with the humans, but when the wind rose she sneaked off, stalking low to the ground the way cats do when hunting. She ended up in the master bedroom closet, and even when the storm was over it was quite a job for Jenny to persuade her to come out.

As for the orange cat, which we called Captain after a similarly-colored cat that used to belong to Georgie’s original owner, he lay down in the kitchen as much at ease as if he had always lived with us. After the storm he didn’t want to leave. Over the next few weeks I took him back several times to the vicinity of his house, as I wasn’t trying to steal him, but within half an hour he would always return. It was clear that he had chosen to live with us. Although my husband is not a pet person, Captain earned his welcome from him in the rat control department. Captain was my beloved pet for the next several years.

The epilogue is that Hurricane Mitch turned out to be much less than what we were prepared for; we barely got even gale-force winds.
 

 
 
 
 
Subscribe to the Explore Meditation Newsletter to access free meditation downloads, tips and insights.

---

 
Listen to Guided Meditations for Relaxation and Spiritual Growth. Explore your interests from this meditation menu.

---

 
Download MP3 Meditations to your computer. Burn them to CD or transfer them to iPod, Tablet, Phone or MP3 player.

---

Explore Meditation aims to provide you with the best quality information and resources to assist you to be the best person that you can be.