A Great Legacy

Stewie, the world’s longest cat, just died after his battle with Cancer. 

The Maine-coon cat grabbed the Guinness World Records title for longest cat in 2010. Diagnosed with lymphosarcoma in January 2012, he got radiation and chemotherapy, but his remission didn't hold and he died days after his birthday. 

  He was named after one of the popular characters on the television program, Family Guy. Stewie was more than 30 inches longer than the average domestic house cat. When Stewie was eight-years-old, he shot to fame in 2010 when Guinness World Records officials declared him the lengthiest feline on the planet. 

He was bought from a breeder in Hermiston, Oregon, in 2005 — and was given the full name of Mymains Stewart Gilligan. As a therapy cat, he would be taken to visit sick people in hospital and was also a regular on the cat-show circuit. The gentle giant Maine Coon died at 7.30 p.m. on Monday at his owner Robin Hendrickson's home in Reno, Nevada.

He was great not only in size, but as a salve for those suffering affliction. What a legacy to leave in your wake.

Waking to Kafka

            I’ve been reading Kafka in bed before going to sleep.  Perhaps that’s the influence that has me wondering where did THAT come from? I'm reminded of a phrase that whickered its way into my morning thoughts in the midst of awakening from my dreaming. Spinning over and again the same thing until I noticed it and question the relevance: 

Picking up fragments of shattered past dreams in an effort to construct a mosaic of my new horizon.

  Clues; I meet someone, or the topic of discussion comes to rest upon a similar theme; then I have to ponder.  Is this the product of my steering or is it a

Happenstance?  Change challenges the constructed identity; the illusory self.  And just as grief descends at the passing of a loved one, so it appears as resistance to the incursion of facts that do not accommodate a carefully created fantasy; an internal strife that seeks to cherish the validity of desired dream state of who we've grown comfortable in saying we are.

  Truth is the vanguard that suddenly threatens this preference.  Even a life littered with obstacles and dampening quagmires which keeps happiness at bay might offer a derived sense of security with knowing it’s landscape and the seasons of predictable alteration. Lying in wait is a sense of ease. Such are the illusions whispering comfort based on predictability; an invested hope for secure havens of protection from swelling rumors and idle gossip of unshaped dangers just over the foreseeable horizon. 

Frostily Frozen

You know, looking out my window, seeing the frost, it got me to thinking on how many of life's miracles can get lost in daily routines?  Perhaps that is what exciting about children...they approach life with that gusto born of wonder and it reminds us of our own.  Not having a history of rainbows, or fireflies...or comprehending from a scientific position theirs is an awe of frost...how water turns hard...how the white glaze of winters breath coats everything....even under stuff, they discover it with such enthusiasm that it invokes laughter and glee to watch and relive the wonder thru their discoveries of the sacred first time!!

   I've lost count of the number of rocks we as kids threw breaking up the ponds frozen surface.  Or the neat crisp, crunch of the glacial puddles under my shoes.  My cousins and I must have perfected our summertime pitching arms with all that shards of ice that we threw at one another; bouncing off one another’s coats. What joy it was walking to school!  I've examined so much ice, those with twigs and bugs frozen in its grasp, that I can close my eyes and see it still.      

   As are many of the wonders in my early years.  Yes, a vast treasure chest filled with those first experiences...as I visit them, I find there are quite a few!  Then, when examining them, I rediscover them precious for entirely different reasons then when they were first won as lessons.  I think of all the natural mysteries left undiscovered that are in our world....but exploring the caverns of memory is by far the sweetest I’ve yet to find....

                                    Reliving....recapturing....and appreciating...strikes me as one of the fundamental pillars of love.  Joy comes from within.....as its just a thought away.

 

Reap and know its flavor...

Breathe it into the here-and-now.....