Don't Forget That Cats Can Climb Trees Too

While doing dishes this morning, I looked out of the window and saw a black cat that hangs around in the neighborhood hunkered down and looking at something.  Just on the other side of the tree from where the cat was a young squirrel was gathering nuts.  The predictable happened, the cat pounced the squirrel got away up a different tree than what was closer to both of them.  At the time I thought two things, why climb a tree 6 ft away when there was a perfectly good tree 2 feet away, and didn't the squirrel realize that cats can climb trees too?

I some times think we do the same thing in our lives. we ignore what is right in front of us for something else that is further down the road.  I have never been around a lot of people who are dying before and I am still an armature at it myself, having come close only once before myself, but I can see that some people can fall in the trap of seeing only the dying and not the living that needs to be done before the dying comes along.

The same goes for the care giver of the patient too.  Too many times our loved ones will be paralyzed, frozen in time if you will, when the doc gives the long face.  They refuse to see the potential living that can be done before the dying gets here.  Yeah, shock can do that to you as well.  It can also make you ignore the dying part and lie to you telling you there is a cure that is going to come along.  A cure administered to the patient just in time to turn around all the damage and banish the disease to never kill another person again.  After all that is what happens in the movies and on TV, so it has to be true.

You don't know how I wish that was true.

However, I am at peace with my condition and prognosis.

I have friends who are not okay nor any where near okay with it.  They have that false bravado of 'buck up ole man, we'll see you through this!'  I know they mean well.  I know they are trying to show compassion.  I know they are doing it out of what they believe you should do for people like me.

I can't speak for any one else but I would rather they ask me what I have been doing.  What new book I am reading.  Where am I going this weekend.  Acknowledge the disease.  Acknowledge the way the person looks.  Don't try and give me false hope.  Be honest and tell me you don't really know what to say.  That might get you a hug and me comforting you.  Hey I am that kind of guy.  Kinda like Olaf in "Frozen", I likes hugs.

If I had been that squirrel this morning I think I would have jumped up on the nearest tree to me.  Climbing like hell to get to a limb where I could sit and laugh at the cat down below.  I just hope the cat wouldn't suddenly realize that it can climb a tree too.

More importantly I hope that I don't forget that it can too.

Until next time.......................