Finding Good in a World of Bad

Finding Good in a World of Bad

Each year our community has an event called “Inner-Coastal and Watershed Cleanup Day.”  This is organized throughout the county to bring people together in a common cause.  Thousands of volunteers descend on the beaches, parks, creeks and riverbanks adorned with work gloves, garbage bags, and a spirit of making this part of our world a little better.

A few years back our family joined in this effort and while picking up trash down by the riverbed came across one of the volunteers, a young cub scout, who had found a box with kittens in it. Offering to take them to the local animal hospital I proceeded to climb the trail while gently cradling this precious cargo.  As I bent over and peered into the torn Bud Light box I saw four tiny clumps of fur and all but one appeared lifeless.  So, while I hiked up the steep slopes toward the plateau a white faced male hissed and spat at me in protest and protection of his three little brothers so emaciated that they appeared dead.

Once I arrived at the staging area, and with closer examination of these kittens, we discovered that they were barely alive and were infested with hundreds of fleas that were sucking the lifeblood out of them.  But regardless of their condition all four kittens had families wanting to take them home as soon as the vet said it was OK.

After this event I was discussing with my sons how sad it was to see the lack of care people had taken in our community. The amount of trash thoughtlessly discarded on our trails was unbelievable. Mentioning how much it bothered me that people would throw out trash in such a manner my son reminded me that the greater tragedy was that someone would throw out kittens.  That in turn caused me to pause for reflection on the day and cast the negative off for the good where so much good was to be found.  There were many people who worked hand in hand, side by side, to make wrong things right again.   Maybe the lesson is more not to focus on the bad in the world (that is easy to see), but rather to find the brighter side.  So, I choose to believe that a momma cat wanted to shelter her babies from the outside world and placed those kittens there.  I also choose to believe that there are more people in this world today who want to do good in lifting up a community rather than to tear it down.

P.S.      Nestled in beside that feisty little white-faced kitten who greeted me with a hiss and a spat was the smallest and shiest of the litter, another little white-faced beauty that weighed in at 0.7 pounds.  He became part of our family and lived with us for just over five years passing away from cancer last July.  We named him Buddy, short for “Bud Light.”  He really was a light in our life.

In Other’s Words:

If we treated everyone we meet with the same affection we bestow upon our

favorite cat, they, too, would purr.

~ Martin Buxbaum~