As I stood in the wet, overgrown woods behind our vet’s office last Monday, I found myself wishing I’d worn different clothes. The lovely L.L.Bean sweater with matching handknit scarf and gloves from Mom were clearly not up to the task of tracking down our just-escaped cat. I had arrived on the heels of Bill, who brought dear little kitty for a checkup and shots NOT IN THE BOX I LEFT FOR HIM, and was just pulling into an adjoining parking spot to drop off William and go home with my van load of groceries, when out from the open car door shot the little black streak across the parking lot and into the woods. Gone! Who brings an unrestrained animal to a vet? Only a middle-aged clergyman in a busted calf muscle he tore “playing” with the dog last night and who, limping, was now about to join me–sport coat, collar, black felt hat, dapper scarf and all–as we stalked our cat into the woods.

She had been a stray to begin with, so she wanted none of us. I was calling…calling, all sweet and inviting…dropping shredded cheese (fresh groceries back of van) as I went. The sweeter I called the further she ran…like the kids at chore time. Then I was running, running and calling, hurrying as quickly as I could after her disappearing tail through the wet, waist-high thicket which scratched and tore. As I hacked my way through brambles and bushes, hurdled fallen logs, staggered through frozen mud puddles in my fresh-from-the-elementary-school outfit where I read wholesome stories for a half hour to second graders, I found myself glad I had not won those hundred dollar Danskos on eBay after all, because this little errand was no doubt going to cost me a pair of shoes. I considered throwing off my knock-off clogs entirely so as to leap across the fallen trees more nimbly, but then my Hunger Games vision left me and I pictured my dripping, shredded, bleeding self standing empty-cat-handed at the front desk of the vet’s office, trying to explain that I–er, gave away our cat carrier.

We had been transporting her in the left-over box that Lacie’s wedding cake came in in October. Towel in the bottom, couple of vent holes in the lid–wedding cake box makes ideal cat carrier. When you USE it. But lo … I caught her! I got down low, knelt in the frozen mud and snatched her up by the end of her tail! And I held onto that squalling, clawing, kicking, spitting animal like she was the golden ticket to the Chocolate Factory of Life, clutching her to my chest with a vice grip and crashing, staggering, stumbling back through the woods into the Vet’s backyard. We managed to get her MOST unhappy little feline self on to an examining table, and I’m sure Hansel and Gretel found their way out nicely, what with all that cheese.

Maybe I held on so tightly because I couldn’t face going home empty-handed to our children. She came to us lost this summer, inexplicably and out of the blue, one hot night we accidentally left up the garage door Ellie had been begging…No, did I say BEEEGGGGGING–for a cat for two years, and Bill and I just locked eyes over the dervish of a dog and our ailing 17-year-old-cat, Sam, and said “no.” But there she was, after two days of meowling in our garage and me insisting to Willam that it had to be Sam he heard, and he saying no Mom, no it’s not. Until he went and got a flashlight and knelt down and looked under the jeep that is parked in our garage and sure enough, there was a strange new kitty parked up under there on one of the tires. So we named her “Jeep” and we made her live in the play house for a little while until we got used to the idea, and one day Bill came in and said it was stupid to have an outdoor cat–What good was it to pay all this money for something we rarely see; he said that’s what we have teenagers for.

Maybe I held on so tightly because there is so much loss in my life. I am now making lists, list like you would take to the grocery, of all the items William is to go and check for in the school lost and found. Whole coats. A favorite hat. Mittens…. Those Dollar Store ones are really just disposable gloves, aren’t they? Single-use jobbies, like the pantyhose we are going through for the recent spate of strings concerts and Cotillion dances. Ellie and Sophie enjoy dressing up and seemed so grown-up and mature, sportin’ them little adolescent attitudes to match, and then they come downstairs all dooded up and I decide I like them all over again. They lose homework, reading logs, sheet music, permission slips–they manage to lose all this and yet diligently follow the unwritten law of chaos, which states that lost items can only be looked for five minutes before the bus. Which Ellie missed this morning looking for eyeliner. Eyeliner??! Really? Do you know how many days I dash from the house un-showered, unmade, un-anything, to get somewhere? My mental checklist has grown shorter these days: House? Locked. Dog? In Crate. Pajamas? Not still on body. Ok. All good!

Maybe I held on so tightly because she, this is sweet silky black cat, represents what is good about our life these days. It is unexpected. Oh Lordy, it is all that. Last night on the way to a strings concert, no lie, William and I let a desk chair on wheels slide down a flight of stairs while I muscled away from him a hot dog I didn’t want him to give to the dog, then he went upstairs and got his finger slammed in a door by Ellie, who was annoyed (and apparently looking for her eyeliner) by her brother standing in her doorway making farting noises. Then he came downstairs with so much blood dripping from two fingers I thought they were cut off and so much howling I couldn’t think straight to find where I put the Children’s Tylenol I had JUST bought that morning. So I gave him two chewable vitamins instead, bundled him into the car with an ice bag and towel, stuffed the band-aids into my purse for some parking lot triage once I got to the girls to their warm up on time, and we were off. Bill would have come home to blood drops leading from the hall to the kitchen, where there where ice cubes and a smashed dinner plate on the floor and his overturned wheelie chair upside down on the way to let out a furiously barking dog. He would have if he hadn’t been on his way to the Regional Jail to visit Paul. Dang! Too bad nobody in our house knows duck calls or runs a decoy business. I think we could make a killing off this stuff on primetime.

There is greater loss as well. My dad, who has been battling lung cancer very stoically and well for over a year, is now declining. I guess that’s the polite word. His voice sounds far away and he doesn’t call me anymore. I have been lucky to see him several times over the past year, and we have had more time than expected. But with this loss of my daddy, what is “enough” time? I thought that the sweet, dormant root of my childhood and all that I came from would last forever, simply because it is good. And good things should last. Yet the felling of this man, my father, will take with it much of my trust and security about way life works. Strange to be this naïve as a middle-ager! Who in their right mind takes an unrestrained heart in life? So our little “Jeep” has found her way to my side of the bed, which suits me fine. She is the only pet I don’t bad-mouth, so I know my family is relieved. She has ingratiated herself to Sam and has taken more than a few meaningful swipes off Gus’s nose–which is good, for a dog to know his place.

As I now a little more clearly understand mine. I had been focusing on the loss, on breakage and damage of modern life. On the good things which seem just beyond reach, scampering away through thickets that hold me back. Now I’m so happy and relieved that she was found–TWICE! For she is a representation of all that is restored, all that is constant. She helps remind me of a God who crashes into the woods of our busy-ness, brokenness, worry and despair, of the God who has grabbed me up by the tail, kicking and screaming, has me clutched to his chest with all the protective fury of a mother bear, and who will never, ever let go.

May you catch the blessings of this season without having to wreck your clothes to do so.