lessons from a stealth cat

How would we be different if we spent our days running for our lives? I’ve been watching the wildlife, and it’s an interesting frame of mind to consider, especially knowing that every other species but us, and maybe our pets, does that very same thing. Life can and does change drastically for them in an instant. I saw a squirrel attacked by a very small and very far away cat the other day. It was freaky. This cat stealthed by me like nobody’s business, and next thing I know I heard the squirrel screaming(?) and saw a glimmer of it in kitty’s mouth. Almost instantly the squirrel was wounded, head bleeding, in my yard. I watched as she desperately tried to get away from a second curious cat but didn’t have enough to stay on the tree she climbed. Kitty number two lacked the interest, and I watch miss squirrel licking herself and stumbling around while flies gathered on her head. As I left for my walk, she was quite entangled in some bramble, and I wondered whether she’d make it or die suffering, no hospital destination to feel protected by.  Just her, in the middle of the day, in some leaves, doing all she knew to do.  When I left my driveway, stealth cat was headed her way. She wasn’t there when I got back.

This isn’t the first time I’ve wondered how different I would be, how life would be, if that was my reality. Would it be better? Would I live in the moment and not worry, savoring every nut? Or just react quickly to dire realities? Is the life I live better than that, or worse? People still die unexpectedly, people still die violently, and we still die from illness. It’s the in between, the LIVING, that’s so different. On which end of the spectrum have put ourselves? I do wonder.