Homecoming

"Do I have to go back?" Spencer asked.  "Never," said Sam. (From The Big Red Chair, Amazing Grace, 2/25/12)


On an August morning almost a year after his mother's death, Spencer became our "Double Son"--a grandson by birth, a son by adoption.  At last, I would be able to care for him as I yearned to do, and as I promised my daughter Tara I would.  At last, there was hope for healing.  

We painted a bedroom and declared it his. We filled the space with books and games to replace the ones that had been lost. I hung his mother’s cross from a chain over the corner of a bulletin board in his new room to remind him of her love and her faith. But regardless of what we did, Spencer's heart wasn't with us. 

He spent hours alone in his room playing his mother's guitar, grieving for her and for his little sister Alden. Spencer rarely spoke of what transpired during the year after his mother's death when he lived elsewhere. He rarely mentioned the life he left behind on the day his mother went to the hospital while he stayed with friends to await her return, until one day he asked, "What happened to Cleo?" 


My heart broke to tell him I didn't know what happened to Cleo, his little gray, bob-tailed cat, or for that matter his belongings or other pets, but with his question, I knew what needed to happen.

The eight-week-old kitten marched into our lives with a swagger and frisky confidence--a tiny, tuft of terrifying-in-his-own-mind ball of orange fur.  His scrawny body and over-sized head gave no hint of the twenty-pound beauty he would become.  In his self-assured kitten heart, he was already there.

All bluff and fluff, he pounced on fuzzy balls that Spencer rolled across the floor. He stalked a stuffed mouse that Spencer pulled from a string. He leapt from a frozen crouch to a death-defying three feet in the air to capture imaginary birds on the end of plastic sticks. His tenacity and hunting skills would have brought pride to a mother lion’s heart. 

Affectionately named Mack O’Hara Cox, a nod to our family’s Irish roots and Southern heritage, the Maine Coon kitten brought new life into the house.

And Spencer came home.

Mack--the healing cat--came into our lives, replaced tears with laughter, and brought with him a love big enough to fill the hole in a boy’s broken heart.

Reflections:


"Where there is love, there is life."~Mahatma Gandhi


Psalm 23: "He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul."


"An animal's eyes, have the power to speak a great language."~Martin Buber


-Healing takes many forms--from physical cure to emotional recovery. When have I known healing? How did it begin?


-Have I found healing in unexpected places? Where were they?