I was just upstairs a few minutes ago having washed my hands from putting out the possum and raccoon food for the day when I noticed Finn sleeping on the air hockey table.
I stopped in my tracks, not just because I love the little guy but because he reminds me of how lucky I am to have such wonderful little babies that care for me.
It is easy to focus on all the negativity that has been in my life this past year but important to recognize that simultaneously I have been experiencing the love (and devilment) of an amazing collection of little guys that have more than compensated for any such negativity.
Finn is the most recent adoptee that is now a permanent resident upstairs. He arrived on the property very badly mutilated having lost half of his tail to an attacker.
For over a month (maybe even two) I would feed him outside, hoping desperately that the end would heal itself but it never did. So, finally when I had his confidence in doing so, I picked him up and brought him in and scheduled an amputation surgery for a few days later.
There were initially some miserable complications but finally after about six weeks of nursing him carefully in the bathroom, he was healed and so we integrated him with the other upstairs guys.
Since then he has put on weight, sleeps on my bed with me most nights and torments the hell out of Marty, Marcy, and Rocky. But deep down, I think they love him anyway.
Morgan and I have often looked at him these past months and seen him at a kitchen or bathroom window looking out on the hostile world he came from and we smile to ourselves at how much his life has changed in his time with us.
His feelings of comfort and personal safety have evolved to where he worries for nothing other than occasionally how he can get Marcy out from under the sofa.
Seeing him here today and thinking about how his life has changed is very much a victory in my life as well as his. I revel at the thought of the difference made in the life of a little guy that might not have survived at all if left to the world from which he came.
It serves to remind me that in the middle of all my failures, occasionally I find a success.
Finn is a major one.
… just a thought.
