You Are Deserving

I’m not sure that the little black cat wanted
to be held, but she was going to make sure
that it experienced human love before she
passed back through the gate and onto the
street we would use to go someplace else.

That was her boundless way: to assume that
love simply belonged in a place and to put
it there whenever it occurred to her to do so.

It’s an interesting way to live:

being uncompromising in one’s stance that this
world make a place for love. I think, perhaps,
she realized that time was of the essence, that
there are so many of us that need to be picked
up and shown, in no uncertain terms, that we are
deserving. One can wander the yard for years
without knowing such a vital thing.

This morning, I’ve been wondering what happened
to that little black cat. Maybe the power of her love
magically turned it into something else later that
day. I’m imagining it now as a feisty angel. In my
mind’s eye, it has come from the heavens to pick
her up, ready or not, saying:

“Love. You are deserving!”

And, through the gate she goes.

— Jamie K. Reaser
In honor and memory of Kelsey Collins