There are many directions I could go from this juncture.  There is the self-directed anger and rage.  There is the other-directed anger and rage.  There is the heart-rending grief when I looked out the window that first evening I was supposed to bring Pumpkin home and instead watched Sprout on the deck staring down the lane towards the metal shed.  He sat there agitated between the draw of the food bowl and the habitual sight of his mother coming up to the house to feed with him.

It didn’t help that we were hit with a snow storm over the next two days and the temperature plummeted to -23° C  for two nights.  At 2AM the first morning of the storm, distressed and  unable to sleep, I looked down from the upstairs window expecting dismal darkness laced with freezing rain; there was Sprout bouncing in the snow banks and at daylight I chuckled to see the kitty-angels in the snow.  The next night when the wind was at its screeching wildest, I sat in the little unheated mudroom and listened to him mewling in the space under it; all I could hope was that my voice soothing him would help.  He survived the first night when temperatures sank to -23°C; I was convinced we would make it through!  He didn’t show up at his usual time for breakfast after the second night of deep freeze; I was convinced he was dead.

If Sprout were to live out my story of his life, he’d likely not survive.  Thankfully, he seems to be writing his own version of the Life of Sprout.  For the moment it seems filled with anxiety, wonder, adolescent demands for food, and refusal to listen to reason.  Of course, kitties are vulnerable at this age and skittish which makes it hard to cultivate a quick bond with him.  That introduces much uncertainty about his potential for survival and I am working on resting in the reality that there is only so much we can do.  He has food and water; the old barn is filled with warm old hay, and the shed has nooks and crannies to protect him from larger animals.

It should reassure me.  Sometimes it does.  And then it doesn’t.  What is fascinating is the way my mind grabs each sense perception and derives a conclusion.  I see him eat and think, “Oh, he’s going to be just fine!”  I don’t see kitty paw prints in the snow from the night before and think, “He’s dead!”  I try to lure him to me with treats and when he dashes away: “Oh, he’ll never survive!”  I watch him dive into snowbanks and the angels sing.

This is a fickle mind which writes tales of life and death from each split second.  It has no shame.  It will as easily destroy as generate.  It has a licence to kill and clone.  Thank goodness it cannot realize – make real – anything without the cooperation of the rest of the five streams, Four Foundations, Six Paramitas, Five Precepts, Ten Grave Precepts, and a raft of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas, and the Mahaprajnaparamita too!