Words of The Lamb magazine

One week several years ago, my wife was acting kind of distant towards Kristin and me. Actually, she became quite irritable, and we really couldn’t put our finger on it because Theresa is always so bubbly and outgoing.

Now, Kristin and I spent a lot of time together driving back and forth to school every day, and we solved a lot of the world’s problems. She and I were discussing her mother’s moodiness one evening on the way home from basketball practice, and she blurted out, “Maybe it’s menopause.” I grinned and shook my head and said, “Nah, maybe she’s upset because she hated seeing her son go back to college after spending a wonderful Thanksgiving break with us.

Well, that evening Theresa, Kristin, and I were at the dinner table, and I noticed that she had tears in her eyes. Once again, Kristin leans over to me and whispers, “Menopause.” I gave her a quick glance and motioned, “Shhh.”

After supper, when Kristin wasn’t around, I saw Theresa go out into the garage with a flashlight. Rather strange since our garage was very well lit, and when she came back in, I asked her what was bothering her and why did she need a flashlight.

Tears came to her eyes, and she said that the cat was gone. And she told me how a cat, when they sense they are dying, will leave their surroundings and go off to be alone to die. And she would go out into the garage with her flashlight every half an hour or so in hopes that the cat would return home.

Now there is a real interesting story about our outdoor cat. I really don’t know if it had a formal name except maybe “Kitty” when Theresa called out for it. I called it “Tommy.” But what do I know? I called the indoor cats Tommy, and if I got upset at the dog, I called him Tommy, too!

To be honest, I’m not too much of a pet fan, but Theresa loves her animals, so I have learned to tolerate them. Never really understood why people get wrapped up in their pets… until that night.

You see, Tommy had been a fixture in our household for a long time. He came and lived with us for nine years. Same year Theresa got the dog. Come to think about it, the same year Theresa married me. Now there’s something wrong with that, Theresa taking me in at the same time she took the dog and the cat in.

Well anyway, one day that scraggly, little thing appeared in our garage, and Theresa’s dad kind of adopted him. Now, old John loved that cat. He would hold that cat for hours at a time… petting him… scratching his ears… rubbing his belly.

Me? I hated that cat! He was a plain old, measly tomcat who always seemed to have a runny nose. The cat ignored me, I ignored the cat, and it was a livable situation.

That winter, Tommy got cancer. It started out slowly, but by the end of the winter, the cancer had eaten away part of its face. Now the veterinarian said that there wasn’t really too much that we could do for Tommy. Either we could put the cat to sleep, or we could continue caring for it, as he didn’t feel that the cat was in any pain.

Every day it was the same old thing. Tommy would scratch at the door when it was feeding time, and Theresa would step out and feed him… spend a few moments with him.

And every night Theresa would faithfully go out and put salve on Tommy’s face. Eventually, Tommy went blind. The last few weeks Theresa would leave the garage door cracked so that Tommy could walk just a few steps out to warm himself in the sun.

Theresa really loved Tommy, and she was just as devoted to him as she was to Kristin or Richie or me when we weren’t feeling well. Sometime during the day on Thursday, Tommy just slipped away.

I learned a lot about cats that week. I learned a lot about my wife that week. Every night she would go out into the cold garage and patiently put ointment on a dying cat’s face. And she would hold that cat and love that cat as if it were whole again.

I learned a lot about life that week. I learned that in all of our ugliness, God can find beauty in us. I learned that He loves us all the same. It doesn’t matter if we are pretty or not so pretty. It doesn’t matter to him that we have flaws and imperfections. It doesn’t matter how ugly we look to the outside world, because to Him we are beautiful.

It’s kind of funny how God puts an ordinary thing like a mangy old tomcat into our lives… in order for us to see Him more clearly.