Learning To Count On Lady Maude
Long-time readers may remember another of our feline companions--Not Abraham. Like Lady Maude, Not Abraham also had peculiar penchant for dragging and pulling. An eerie blend of moaning and growling would alert us to her work--and put us on the run to see "what the cat had dragged up." Literally.
As proud as a panther cub bringing fresh meat to the family, Not would drag socks or underwear and exhibit them before us. The growling would go one until some emotionally approved her work. "Good girl, Not! Good girl!"
Lady Maude is of the same ilk of draggers and pullers--and her horizons are constantly expanding. She's pretty well mastered bits of paper and those "foam peanut" thingys used to pack fragile stuff. But when I saw her laboring to get a full-size blanket down the hall, I knew she was not one to be easily defeated.
Grabbing the blanket firmly in her teeth, she would fling her coal-black body with one white whisker into the air. A quick snap of her little head was just enough to move the blanket a fraction of an inch. But eventually tiny fractions add up. And unlike a fellow I saw in our recent ice storm, I can thus count on Maude to make the most of her challenges.
Obviously disgruntled over his inconvenience, "The Whacker" was standing on the hood of a car trying to kick the ice off the windshield. Frustrated by its resistance, his next maneuver was to begrudgingly whack at it with a large, blunt object. It wasn't even his car.
Others, however, saw the immense adversity of shattered trees, fallen limbs, and ice-choked roads as opportunity. Chain saws buzzed as fellows swarmed over the debris--clearing it one limb at a time--despite the daunting task.
Walter Anderson (editor of Parade Magazine) has said, "I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have-life itself."
We always have choices, it seems, about how we respond to the inevitable obstacles of life. Like The Whacker, we can try to dispatch them with one or two swift kicks--and hope they quickly disappear. Or we can be like Lady Maude and relish the joyful accumulation of many infinitesimal successes.
I can always count on Maude to cheerfully persist. I'd like to say that others can always count on me.
Copyright 2001 James McAlister
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