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| A Child's Magic by � moon_grace There is a magic in children, if we allow them to have it. I try to encourage the magic here. I used to have it when I was a child. I had a link to my grandfather who lived far away. I always "knew" when he would show up for a visit. In the beginning, I told my mother of these things, but she was very uncomfortable with them and discouraged even the mention of such things. Bit by bit, it ebbed from me. I could no longer SEE things as clearly as I did as a child. I do still have these things creep back now from time to time, but they are only fleeting glimpses. I was surprised to see the trait in my son. We bought a house that needed work. At the same time, my son's cat had a litter of kittens. Now we had 5 counting the parents. It was a busy time in our lives and the cats lived out doors. The kittens ended up half wild because we were so busy shuffling off every evening and weekend to get the house in some kind of shape to live in. They were already weaned by the time 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 at the point of living at the new place and it was time to move the animals. Many people told us to leave the wild kittens there, but 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 about it a lot in those few days as we drove back and forth moving items that were left in the barn. I tried to get him ready for the fact that we may not be able to find them. On one afternoon, we scooped up the father who was tame anyway and put him in a box. We could have taken the mother then too, but we felt it best to leave her because of the little ones. We managed to capture one of the babies and put it in a box also and transported them home to the old barn they were supposed to now live in. The next day, we went back for more things. We traveled in two trucks and had to drop off the one truck on the way because it belonged to my father-in- law. So, here we were with our boxes again. We captured another kitten and the mother. We put them in two seperate boxes and taped them shut and put them on the top of the truck. There were other odds and ends on the truck also, so they were tucked in well. We really tried to look for the last kitten, but he was no where to be found. Finally, we gave up the search. I remember thinking, "Well, four out of five is not bad odds." We had a call before we left the old home. It was my husband's work, he needed to come in to do an emergency x-ray. So, here we go, first to the surgical center to do an x-ray and then to a town nearby to drop off the truck and finally to our new home. We drove across the yard to the barn. There we grabbed up 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 of the box. Not only was it lost, we didn't even have a clue as to what town it had been lost in. I could see the look on my son's face. Inwardly, it brought me to my knees. 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 a bit and he told me, "Mom, I just know he might find his way here." I truely doubted it inside, but my voice said, "Well son, nothing is impossible." The next day, we had things to attend to. We had left a lot of food out at the old place for the kitten and there was a warm shed that he was used to should he decide to stay there. We were outside, watering the shrubs we had moved a few days before. My husband had the hose in his hand watering, when my son yelled, "There he is!!! I told you he would come!!" Across the pasture, in front of the barn were four cats, The mother and father and the kitten we had moved and the kitten we had lost on the way. At this point, my husband had to change clothes because he was watering his feet in disbelief. As near as we could figure, the kitten must have gotten out of the original box and climbed into one of the cabinets in his fright. I do not know if this really was what happened, but being an adult, sometimes magic has to slap you in the face before you can see it. Alone, my husband went back to the old home to get more of the shrubs we still had to move. He took a box with him, but he did not even see the last kitten on his trip. Finally, time was creeping up on him and he had to make the drive to our new home. Not wanting to waste any trip if anything extra could be carried, he picked up the canoe and strapped it to his truck and came home. He drove up to meet our son standing watchfully in the drive. My son knew by the look on his father's face that he didn't have the last kitten with him. A six year old can make you feel awful with one look. We unloaded the canoe and were unloading the shrubs and all the while, he was saying, "But the other one found his way here, maybe the last one will too." At this point, I felt that wish was not going to come true, no way. I tried to explain to my son that we would rent a hav-a-hart trap and see if we could trap the kitten for him. We didn't have to. The next morning, out playing in front of the barn were all five cats. I looked at my husband and he looked at me. My son yelled, "I told you mom, I told you!! I knew they wanted to come stay with me!" Racking our brains, discussions were held out of earshot of our little one...maybe in the canoe? Maybe he had hidden under the seat of the canoe. This in itself would have been a miracle-- a miracle that if he did do that, he was staring at highway stripes for about an hour and never jumped out along the way. I don't know. Knowing my son now and realizing what he had inside of him, I would not have been surprised if the cat flew to be here. Later, in the week, we were unrolling wire to fence in the back yard. On the rolls of wire were pictures of animals. One of the animals was an ostrich. I was surprised to overhear my son telling the neighbor that the wire would keep in an ostrich, so he was probably going to be getting one soon. At this point, I called him over and told him about how terrible ostriches are. "They kick son, and they bite hard. You really don't want one.......please.......you really don't want an ostrich." I had seen what he could conjure before. |