| A Child's Magic by � moon_grace There is magic in children, if we allow them to keep it. I had it when I was a child. I was linked to my grandfather who lived far away. I "knew" when he would show up for a visit long before he came to the door. I tried to explain to my mother. Once. She was uncomfortable with it and discouraged even its mention. Bit by bit, it ebbed from me. I could no longer SEE as clearly as I did as a child. I do still have things creep back from time to time, but merely fleeting glimpses. I should not have been so surprised to see the trait in my son. Our new house needed work. At the same time, my son's cat had a litter of kittens. We now had five cats, counting the parents. It was a busy time in our lives and the cats lived out doors. The kittens ended up half wild while we shuffled off evenings and weekends to get the house in shape to live in. They were already weaned when we moved. Sure, my son had caught one and played with it from time to time, but those times were few and far between. We were now at the point of living at the new place. It was time to move the animals. People told us to leave the wild kittens there. I couldn't do that. All the while, my son kept saying, "They will move with us mom, I know they will. Don't leave them." We talked a lot as we drove back and forth transporting things. I tried to get him to accept that we may not be able to find them, let alone catch them. On one afternoon, we scooped up the tame father and put him in a box. We could have taken the tame mother too, but felt it best to leave her because of the little ones. We managed to capture one baby and put it in another box to transport home to the new "old" barn they were to now live in. The next day, we went back for more things. We took our trapping boxes again. We captured another kitten and the mother. We put them in two separate boxes, taped them securely, and put them on the top of the truck. Other odds and ends filled the truck also, so they were tucked in well. We scanned the place for the last kitten, but he was no where to be found. Daylight was fading as we gave up the search. I remember thinking, "Well, four out of five is not bad." We had a call before we left our old home. It was my husband's work. He needed to come in to do an emergency x-ray. We travelled first to the surgical center to do an x-ray and then to a town nearby to drop off one of the two trucks we were using. Finally we stopped at our new home. We drove across the yard to the barn. We grabbed the boxes to let out the cats. First, out came the mother cat. When we opened the other box, we were horrified to find it empty. The kitten had gotten out. Not only was it lost, we didn't even have a clue as to what town it had been lost in. The look on my son's face inwardly brought me to my knees. Silently, we unloaded the cabinets and boxes from the truck and stuffed them into a stall in the barn. We were not a happy family. However, later, my son's spirits rose as he told me, "Mom, I just know he'll find his way here." I truely doubted it inside, but my voice said, "Well son, nothing is impossible." The next day found more things to attend to. We had left out a lot of food at the old place for the kitten and there was a warm shed should he decide to stay there. We worked outside our new home, watering the shrubs we had moved a few days earlier. My husband had the hose in his hand, when my son yelled, "There he is!!! I told you he would come!!" Across the pasture, in front of the barn, sat four cats: the mother and father, the first kitten we had moved, and the kitten we had lost on the way. My husband had to change clothes as he was was now watering his feet in disbelief. As near we could figure, the kitten must have gotten out of the original box and climbed into one of the cabinets in his fright. I don't know if this is really what happened, but being an adult, sometimes Wonder has to slap you in the face before you see it. Alone, my husband went back to the old home to dig the last of the shrubs. He took a box with him, but he didn't see the last kitten on his trip. Finally, time was creeping on him and he still had to make the drive to our new home. Not wanting to waste a trip if anything extra could be carried, he picked up the canoe and strapped it to his truck. He drove up to meet our son standing watchfully in the drive. My son recognized the look on his father's face. He knew he didn't have the last kitten. The eyes of a six year old can show so much pain. It ages you. We unloaded the canoe and started placing shrubs. My son followed our steps repeatedly saying, "But the other one found his way here, maybe the last one will too." At this point, I Knew that wish was not coming true. No way. I explained we would rent a hav-a-hart trap to see if we could trap his kitten. I didn't have much hope of success. We didn't have to. The next morning, out playing in front of the barn were all five cats. I glanced sideways at my husband as he stood mesmerized by the scene at the barn. My son squealed as he ran across the pasture, "I told you mom, I told you!! I knew they wanted to come stay with me!" Racking our brains, out of earshot of the elated boy...in the canoe? Had he hidden under the seat of the canoe? This, in itself, would have been a miracle-- a miracle that if true, he had been staring at highway stripes for an hour and still had not bailed out at the first stoplight. I don't know. I watched my son and as he bounded into a sea of kittens and cats, I began to realize what he had inside him. It wouldn't have surprised me if the cat flew to be here. Later, in the week, we were unrolling wire for the new back yard fence. On the rolls of wire were pictures of animals. One animal was an ostrich. I was uneasy to overhear my son "knowingly" telling the neighbor, "That wire will keep in an ostrich, so I'm probably gonna be getting one soon." At this point, I called him over. I informed him of the terrible disposition of ostriches. "They kick son. And they bite. Hard. You really don't want one.......please.......you really don't want an ostrich." I had already seen the strength of his believing. |
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