Why did the Universe put Thumper in our lives?

2014

A few years ago our neighbors that lived across the street foreclosed on their home, they upped and left in the middle of the night leaving everything they owned behind, including their two cats.

Those two cats soon became four cats, then eight cats, and then sixteen. 

I have found healing qualities by writing. 

My wife BettyJane has found healing qualities by nurturing these cats back to life, feeding them and sheltering them from harsh winters and eventually finding permanent homes for them.

She is very good at it; she cares a great deal for them and has had some miraculous saves.

I can recall more than a few kittens she hand fed with a baby’s bottle because their own mother abandoned them; kittens who were only hours away from death that she invigorated and nurtured back to life.

It is a bittersweet feeling for her when she hands over a kitten to their new family.

Even with finding homes for over forty-four cats, there is one cat she could never give away.

That was Thumper.

The sun comes up and I walk into my kitchen for a drink of water.

There, somewhere equidistant between the floor and the ceiling, hanging on to the screen on my screen door with his claws is Thumper.

A smile immediately forms on my face.

That’s what Thumper does, every time you see him, he makes you smile.

He makes you smile while he is doing absolutely nothing.

He is sort of the Seinfeld of cats.

I can watch him all day chase his shadow, play with a ball, roll in the grass or lie on his back taking in the sun.

He exudes awe and wonderment in everything he does.

Nothing is ordinary to him.

Thumper is lying on the porch.

My initial reaction is that he is sun bathing again.

He is not.

He is dead.

Lying beside Thumper is a half eaten mouse.

A mouse that recently ate the poison that a neighbor put down to end his existence.

The mouse ate the poison; Thumper ate the mouse.

Thumper is gone.

Why did the Universe take a soul who provided such happiness to the world?

I don’t have access to those parts of the Universe’s plan, but I believe a better question is, “Why did the Universe put Thumper in our lives?”

And that question I can answer.

The Universe put Thumper in our lives for us to learn to have an enthusiasm for life, to find awe in our life, to cherish life’s most ordinary moments.

I do know there are Thumpers throughout all of our lives, people who come into our life at the exact moment we need them.

They do their job and then they move on.

Thumper showed a zeal for life.

He made ordinary, extraordinary.

That is exactly what my life needed to see.

Thank you, Universe.

Thumper is a chapter from

Your Soul Knows