Shivering in the Night

It's not often we get to save a life. Once in a great while, we are offered that blessing - to save some creature from suffering and death, and to make our corner of the world a better, kinder place.

It all started, for us, with a flash of movement over by the barn one cold autumn morning. A furtive scrabbling, and it was gone. Over the next few days, we saw him again and again. He was a half-grown Siamese kitten, thin, nearly starved, runny-nosed and sickly. He was fearful and skittish - at the least movement he'd dart away, terrified. We put out food, though, and the bowl was empty every morning. As my husband went around his work outside, the little cat would watch, scoot to the nearest place of safety, watch again. Our old dog, ambling here and there, he soon learned to ignore. He wasn't leaving - but the nights were getting colder, and we could see him trembling when he crouched nearby to watch us.

One morning when I reached for the bowl, I heard a faint, rusty meow. It took a while to find him, but there he was, two eyes staring intently at me from the dark corner behind the woodpile.

It takes time to make a miracle, to coax a tiny, frightened creature into trust. You need to be patient, and let it come to you. So I brought over a low stool, set it on the other side of the barn, filled the bowl, and sat down to wait. Step by slow step he came, crept up to the bowl, darting me worried glances, and ate quickly. Then he was off. The next morning I brought the stool a little closer, and the morning after that, closer still. This time I spoke to him: "Hey, there. How're you doing today?" He stopped, stared at me, went back to eating. I moved the stool a little closer.

Then there came the day when I was only a few feet away. I took a deep breath, reached out, ever so slowly, and touched his back. He looked around at me, and went back to eating. I waited a bit, and then touched him again. This time, slowly, slowly he turned and looked right at me, and everything seemed to stop - and then he walked up to my outstretched hand, dipped his head and rubbed against it.

From there, soon he was coming up to us, begging to be held and cuddled, and it wasn't long before we brought him into our home.

It was amazing to watch, that steady change from fear to trust, from sickness to health. It took so little, really - a little food every day, clean water, a warm bed, someone to care. A trip to the vet for shots and neutering, and soon that sickly, starved, frightened creature blossomed into a sleek, healthy, loving cat, smart and playful and alert.

I have no doubt in my mind that if he hadn't dared to approach us, had he stayed in the woods, he would never have lasted the winter. And it would have been a miserable, painful, lingering death.

Today we stood on the porch and watched as he left for his new home. Our house will feel so empty without him, but he'll be safe and loved. He'll bring his new family so much joy, and they'll take good care of him.

So often in the news we read about the brave bystander who saves the child from the burning car, or who leaps to drag the fallen stranger from the path of the subway train. But I don't think life usually works like that. We go on living our lives from day to day, and someday it will come - that flash of pain out of the corner of your eye of someone who needs you - you, no one else but you - to be their savior. It might just come once, and if you're not watching, you could miss it.

See, you have to make room in your life and your heart, or you'll miss that whisper in the dark that's begging for your special touch. It might come from the birds in the frigid winter, or the neighbor you see every day but never speak to, or the desperate appeal you got in the mail and tossed in the recycling bin. But each of us have been entrusted with that power to heal some suffering creature. To open a cage. To lighten the heavy load of this suffering world. What a blessing.

Watch for it, and listen, for your time will come. It may already be here.