A friend who, like me, was facing the challenge of a new b.o.s.s. (birthday of some significance), recently asked if I found myself growing “more reflective,” as the epic day drew near … and the years go by. I wasn’t sure how to reply.
In fact, like most writers, ‘m rather reflective by nature, although certain things – illness, loss, the ending (and coming) of another year, and yes, another birthday – can accentuate that. As it turned out, the close of 2021 brought a fair sampling of all of those things. So, between fever spikes and grief, midnights clear and auld lang synes, I did find a lot to meditate upon.
What I kept coming back to was the cat.
The incident apparently caused considerable commotion at the time, but I was oblivious until a year-end retrospective mentioned it among the memorable moments of 2021. On September 11, during a game between the Miami Hurricanes and Appalachian State in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, a cat somehow wound up hanging on for dear life to a cable running along the facade of one of the upper decks.
How the cat got there, no one could say. But halfway through the first quarter, nobody in that part of the stadium was paying any attention to the game. Gasps and screams filled the stands, as people suddenly spied the cat – then elbowed someone else – then watched in growing chorus as the creature desperately clawed for a hold, dangled for one long minute by its two front paws … then by one … then by none, plunging 30 feet into the crowd below.
Where, happily, two season-ticket holders, Craig and Kimberly Cromer, had found the presence of mind to yank the American flag they bring to every game off the railing in front of them and spread it out like a net beneath the cat. It didn’t catch the falling feline, exactly, but it broke its fall enough that the cat didn’t break its neck.
Then, saved and famous, the cat bolted for the concourse and anonymity.
It might please my aforementioned friend to know that several reflections came to mind as I watched a half-dozen YouTube videos of the cat’s frantic struggle and meteoric descent.
For one thing, the limits of what people can do. Several cat owners remarked online that, had any one of the stadium bystanders – looking breathlessly down from the railing above at the struggling cat a foot or two below them – thought to dangle a shirt or jacket or blanket, the cat would likely have sunk his claws into the fabric and quickly scrambled up to safety.
I’m not exactly up on cat behavior or feline rescue techniques, but it’s certainly very like people – for all our caring hearts and higher intelligence – to be so anxious to help that we miss the most obvious ways of helping. We wring our hands. Whisper with other onlookers. Point and gasp and squeal. But in the end, it’s just so much easier to watch someone fall than it is to save them.
That’s what makes the flag-bearers down below so impressive; they actually understood what to do with what limited resources they had available. Still … they paid a price for their ingenuity.
Apparently the cat, in his frantic state, found himself with yet another dilemma: he could hold on for a few more desperate moments to that cable – or keep a grip on his bladder. He made the understandable choice, and everyone and everything below was damper for his choosing.
What’s more, having survived his great plunge – and finding himself hoisted aloft in triumph by some of those who’d worked so hard to save him – he rewarded their gracious efforts by baring his teeth and scraping his claws down long inches of exposed arms, before vanishing into the crowd and his freedom.
That, too, is par for the (con)course. For a lot of people, gratitude comes hard. Too many of us just really aren’t good at expressing our appreciation for the kindness of strangers. Or friends. Or God.
It’s so much easier to curse the terrors of life than to celebrate the mercies.
Happy as we all are that the cat survived his traumatic experience, it’s hard (for me, at least) to wash from my mind’s eye the awful image of that desperate, high-wire struggle to hold on.
Been there. Live there, a lot of the time. It is so hard to let go.
Cats, the experts say, are actually quite good at landing on their feet. Watching the video, you can see the flying feline pivot in mid-air and spread his paws in anticipation of the hard ground roaring toward him. Cats have survived much higher drops. Flag or no flag, this one might well have been okay.
But the cat wasn’t up on the data. For him, this was an entirely new and unwanted experience. He didn’t want to fall. Lose control. Launch out into the great unknown.
And yet – as any of us can testify – this is the primary, unavoidable lesson of life. The one that keeps coming back around, over and over again, in a thousand forms … all of them painful.
From our earliest days, we lose the things we care about. Toys break. Happy moments pass. Relationships end. People move, or change, or die. Youth fades. Health falters. Life speeds toward its close.
We have to let go.
You can’t explain, “People down there have a flag and they’re gonna catch you” to a cat hanging from the heights by one paw. And it’s just as hard to convince most of us – in the deep places of our souls – that God truly has us in the palm of His hand. That we can let go and trust Him, knowing what’s coming is better than this endless, desperate struggle to hold on.
The word for that is “faith,” and it’s something to reflect on, at the start of a new year. A year that will bring its own pain and challenges, fears and suspense.
We think of God as being “up there,” but, of course, He’s actually everywhere. Often as not, down below us, waiting to see if we trust Him enough to let go of whatever we’re clinging to so desperately.
Today is as good as any for taking the plunge.
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