We had to put Rubix down last night. Christian picked Rubix’s name and she was his cat. She was truly an amazing cat, totally devoted to Christian. In that way, she seemed almost like a dog. I wrote a post about how she used to lay across Christian’s arms while he typed on his computer at the bar in the kitchen in Raleigh. Here is a post about the cat tower Christian and I built for Rubix and Kiwi (the other of the twin cat sisters) as a homeschool project with a picture of Rubix on the top shelf. This is probably my favorite post on the subject a year or two after we had moved to Raleigh. We are not one of those families that anthropomorphizes animals–well, not too much anyway, but we have had a great discussion about life, death and and the greatness of the gift of God’s creation.
Sometimes we get so rapped up in our own issues we forget the bigger picture.
I turned sixty today. Rubix’s passing has been a gift in that it has put the whole aging thing in a good context. I love being this age. I am really not one of those people who laments getting a year older. It is a choice and a gift to love the age you are and realize your place in the whole scheme of things. Lorena and I looked at some old pictures of me when I was a boy and a you man that she dug out of a box she brought along with us in the car on our drive to Portland from Raleigh. 
I made the comment that those pictures, even if they are well preserved, are not going to be too meaningful to anyone in not too many years. If/when Kelly and Christian have kids, they might get a kick out of looking at them a time or two during their life, but the pictures will be pretty meaningless to the generations after that. It just made me cognizant of the importance of embracing the opportunities we have to do the right thing in the here and now.
P.S. Rubix loved Kelly, too.
Betty Blonde #406 – 02/04/2010
Click here or on the image to see full size strip.
