“What happened to Bella’s tail?” Hallie asked

I am not really sure which month it was this year that my rescue cat Bella joined me all I knew it was sometime when I was deployed due to Covid this wasn’t for the military but healthcare.

My life became immersed in work and I was in survival mode. I lived for family FaceTime and texts. Loneliness had crept into my bones and became a weariness that I tried to shake off with exercises and more work .

It was all encompassing and felt like there was no end in sight.
The tiny Kitten was small and frightened and had a short tail when she arrived. I imagined her tail was bitten off by a predator while she fought for her life.
She was found abandoned in a ditch injured and pregnant.

Her baby died shortly after birth as she was just a kitten herself and malnourished.

She was shell shocked and traumatized when she came to me . I nursed her and really babied her. She bounced back and grew and became a really beautiful cat. I put energy into healing her and we bonded.
Today Hallie a lifelong friend comes to trim her nails for me. She comments on how she is unlike other cats as she lay in Hallie’s arms belly up gazing as she had her nails clipped. After she kisses Hallie’s cheek and saunters off. Hallie asks about her tail and I am stunned? “What do you mean?” I ask. “Bella’s tail is short”says Hallie again.  I tell the tale of what I thought happened and I look at my cat with new eyes. She does have a shorter tail – I thought it grew back I gush. Hallie the cat expert says “ she’s  filled in but her tail is much shorter than it should be but she isn’t impacted by it”. In my eyes my cat was perfect. “She’s the sweetest” Hallie defends as she notices I’m hurt slightly. I think back to all the animals I have had over my lifetime and reflect acknowledging that they were all rescues or abandoned. I sigh and say that Bella has rescued me during this pandemic living alone. I spend time talking to her, reading and writing and she has become a sole companion.

I wonder to myself how I didn’t notice the tail and in my mind saw her as transformed and healed. Perhaps this happens with people too and the ones we grow to love.
The transformation is how we see others and the world.

Later in the evening I cuddle with Bella and rub her belly and she licks and nibbles my face.

I tell her that she is the best cat and she gazes adoringly. I realize that I am not the same person that I was at the start of the pandemic.

I have changed and for the better. Following a series of losses and grief I had fallen into an older version of myself far older than my chronological life.

In retrospect I see that I was living like it was the end of my life.

Somehow like sweet Bella I started to wake up to life.

It is never too late to begin again.

I think this transformation is just the start I whisper and I watch Bella stretch in the cascading sunlight.