Running with Scissors

Sara Peterson-Davis has worked as a newspaper researcher and reporter, as well as a communications director and consultant. She and her husband, Monty Davis, can be found in Liberty, Mo., keeping their two children from running with scissors. Contact Sara

Waiting for a Sign

by Sara Peterson-Davis

As much as I hate to admit it, I believe that God, karma, the universe, whatever, throws things in my path to teach me the lessons I need to learn in life.

Some days I imagine someone is just ahead of me on the road of life tossing golden cinderblocks onto the pavement from the bed of a cosmic pickup truck.

And when I come up to them on the road, I have three choices. I can swerve to avoid them, try to ignore them or stop to take a look at it.

In my life, I’ve tried all three approaches. Careening out of the way just meant I found another cinderblock waiting for me a few yards down the road. Acting like it wasn’t there only meant I crashed into it and made a huge mess of things. And stopping and looking it over meant I had to figure out what the heck I was supposed to learn from it.

Which brings me to the cat that came to our house a couple of weeks ago.

It was one of those white-hot days when the thermometer hovered just over 100 degrees, offering a glimpse of what it must be like to live on the surface of the sun.

For some unexplained reason, the kids were outside playing, when suddenly my youngest came crashing through the front door crying something about a cat, water, food and saving a life.

Huh?

Once I got everyone calmed down, sure enough outside was a skinny little cat panting from the heat, looking like she’d tangled with something that hadn’t had her best interests at heart.

Oddly, this cat’s appearance came just a week or so after I’d publicly announced we were not taking on any more pets. A dog, cat and hamster were enough.

But I wasn’t without pity. I dug up some old plastic bowls to fill with water and cat food, and gave them to the kids. Knowing that I am the weakest link in the no more pets policy, I decided to stay out of things and not get involved—emotionally or otherwise.

I hoped that our little homeless visitor would use us as a springboard to find the perfect family with loads of money for catnip toys and vet bills.

What I should have been doing was listening for the thud of one of those cosmic cinderblocks hitting the pavement.

The next morning I went out to get the newspaper and there was kitty waiting for breakfast. She purred as she wove herself between my ankles.

I realized that while I had hoped her Promised Land was yet to be discovered somewhere in the next subdivision, Isabella, as the kids now called her, had decided the manna was falling just fine right where she was.

“Why are you here?” I asked. She looked up, meowed and gave me a kitty smile.

What was I supposed to do?

There was no avoiding this one. She wasn’t leaving on her own. There was no ignoring her. I couldn’t count on the kindness of strangers in this heat. It was time to look for the lesson.

Was it that I needed to change my mind and open my heart to one more furry thing? Was it that I needed to set limits and say “no” to more responsibilities? Or was it that I should have listened to my dad, who during my formative years believed every stray dog and cat was sent to our home to infect us all with rabies.

Since she wasn’t foaming from the mouth at that very minute, I figured it had to be one of the first two.

We went on like this for a few days. Izzy coming out of the woods each morning ready for breakfast and a day of sleeping in the shade on our front steps, while I weighed the expense of taking on another pet against the cost of a good divorce lawyer.

Then one morning Izzy didn’t come around. We had had an unexpected thunderstorm the night before.

I had thought about her briefly as I turned over in bed, but not long enough to get up and open the garage door to give her shelter. I imagined her crushed under the weight of a fallen tree limb.

Right when I was almost certain the lesson to be learned was that I was the most heartless woman on the planet, a waterlogged Izzy came trotting out of the woods meowing for lunch.

Then I wondered if the lesson was that I was the world’s biggest pushover.

Nevertheless, I was relieved to see Izzy. I gave her a scratch on the head and went inside to get a cup of cat food.

“Where have you been?” I asked Izzy when I returned. “I was worried.”

I got one of those kitty smiles as an answer. So what is the answer? I’m not sure but I’m almost certain it doesn’t have anything to do with a worldwide conspiracy to spread rabies.

I think it’s that if self-preservation is your goal, shutting the door on one more responsibility will help you keep your sanity. But if you don’t mind inviting one more thing into your crazy day, you might find a smiling face greeting you each morning.

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