;

A semicolon is a small bit of punctuation that separates two related ideas.  

It’s a clause. 

A pause.  

A semicolon says,  “Wait!  This is not the end;  there is more to come.”

The news today tells us that some people are tattooing semicolons on their wrists to symbolize that there is more to their life story.  They are people who have fought with death or trauma or attempts at suicide, but they have won the battle.  Even though they walked through a very dark valley, and their world and situation seemed hopeless, they made it through.  People with semicolon tattoos are survivors with a backstory.

They paused. 

And they chose hope. 


So, I'd like to introduce my friend.   I like to call him Semicolon Cat.  He has a backstory.

Someone didn’t want him when he was a baby.  He was thrown away.  Abandoned in the darkness of a Minnesota winter.  He was unloved and left to die.

Semicolon Cat appeared on the edge of a woods where my friend lives.  He was tiny, hungry, and matted.  Just a kitten, he had battle scars from facing a mean world on his own.  One ear was wounded; probably frozen in the winter winds.  It bent over, cartilage broken, and just stayed that way, folded in half.  His tail was bent, too.  It dangled and dragged along as he walked, hanging by a thread.  His abdomen was caked in matted blood.

He stayed on the periphery of the woods, watching my friend’s cat daintily lap up her cream on the sunny porch in the mornings.  She slept in an igloo dog house with a heated floor pad, dining twice a day.  She was petted and fluffy and beloved.  He stayed on the edge of the yard, watching.  Suffering.  Afraid.  Wounded.

The family asked around, but no one admitted to losing a little ragged calico cat.  Not a cat whose half a tail just fell off.  The family put out a little extra cat food at night, and left a warm quilt out on the porch.  

The kitten stayed.

The female cat wouldn’t let him in her house.   “It’s too cold for him!” the children said.  “The little kitty needs a place to sleep!”  They left him treats, and my friends cut a hole in their garage door, just the size for a stray feral cat.  He curled up in the warm garage, and began to heal.  Days and weeks and months passed.  Spring came, and Semicolon Cat fattened up on the love of the children, on the pets and caresses and the joy of strings tied to sticks that he chased around the yard.    

He chose this family, and they all love him, just the way he is.  He came out of the woods and right into their hearts, to stay.  He likes to keep close by, following them around, purring and marking their legs with his scent of ownership.  He is a good hunter, and leaves his people special gifts of dead frogs and moles.  He lounges around, right at their front door, rolling over to expose his belly for pets, because he trusts them so implicitly.  He is the most affectionate and loving cat I have ever met.   He is beloved.

Someday if you find yourself in a dark place, feeling unloved and alone, please remember Semicolon Cat.   

Pause.  

Hope. 

Make it through for the Love and Joy that is waiting for you, on the other side of the woods.  

Because someday, today will only be your backstory…  and you can fill the rest of your story with love.

“I see you have a child with Down Syndrome. (Snort) So how’s that goin’ for ya?”   

The woman waited for a response, looking at me with a snarky smile.  I took a deep, slow breath.  

How does one answer a question like this?

Was she hoping I would give her an inside scoop, gossip with a stranger about the difficulties of caring for a child with special needs?  Could she be serious?  

I know it’s easy to get defensive.  Maybe she wasn’t trying to be rude.  Maybe she really wanted to know. 

A lot of people want to know.

Children with Down Syndrome are just not seen much these days.  They are like an elusive, gentle, endangered Panda.  

Rare. 

“My daughter is doing really well, actually.”  I begin.  “She’s a gentle kid who loves to read.  She is one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.”

I smiled at the woman.  After a few more minutes of chatting, when she walked away, she smiled back.  

Only now, her smile was genuine.  

Today reminded me that life is not about confrontation.  It’s not about winning by lawmaking,  or by brute force, or even by being just rude.

We win this life one heart at a time, with gentleness.  With love.

Because when people care, it makes all the difference....

for both an endangered animal and for a child.

No headlines, no news today.  
No schedule, no stress. 

Just happy summer peace.  

These moments exist.  Not often, but some rare days are just sunshine and butterflies.  Resting in the Proverbial Pastures...lying down in the restful green.  

I want to hang on to this day for a very long time.  Perhaps in the dead of January, I will need to be reminded that today actually happened.  Even by tonight, I will get caught up in busyness, crankiness and laundry, I will sink into the abyss of endless work…  yikes.

I will forget that there was peace.

So here you go:  Remind me, please, that I sat around in the sunshine today, just waiting for this butterfly to land.  

I did. 

I hope you, too, get a chance to sit in the pastures and just be.  

Peace out.  

Okay.  I admit it.  Maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea.  I meant to clean everything up and pack up all the Christmas decorations from a recent photo shoot.  But with the approaching holiday and an impromptu camping trip, life got very busy.  So I left the Christmas tree up through the 4th of July.  

Not a good idea.

Someone took the tinsel.   It wasn’t the dog.  It wasn't the rabbit.  

A small Child took the tinsel from our tree.  It had looked so pretty.  The shimmering, glittering plastic was just too enticing to resist.  

When I came home one evening, there it was, scattered all over the kitchen, dining area and living room.   

Everywhere.  Like leftover sparkles from a fireworks explosion.

“What happened?!”  I yelled.  “Why is there tinsel all over the house!?”  

The culprit was ratted out easily, with laughter.  “Small One decorated the dog for Christmas.”

The dog?  I guess that's understandable.  I mean, kids decorate their bikes for parades...

 “Is that all?”

“No.  You should have seen the inside of the dishwasher.  She decorated that for Christmas, too.”  


Maybe we should stick to one holiday at a time.