I woke up in the middle of the night with heavy tightness in my chest.  I took in a deep inhale and realized it wasn’t asthma, just a sad heart.

Life has been quite a struggle lately—unfulfilled work-related opportunities, all those close calls but not sealing the deal (the biggest disappointment was not landing curriculum authorship for a cat behavior certification program of which I was in the running); yet, the most disappointing is the recent end of my relationship with Gary.  We broke-up a year ago after a 2.5 year run and had been on-and-off ever since, making attempts at reconciliation. Even during the “off” times we were in touch. Our connection was always strong; so was the hope. I mean, doesn’t “break-up” mean that something is simply broken and therefore, just needs to be fixed?

Apparently no amount of glue can fix our cracked hearts.

I took a couple more deep inhales and stretched out my legs to find that something was in the way of a complete stretch. It was Bobcat. So I rolled over to the other side of the bed, but was stopped short by Topper, snuggling the pillow on my right. I tried curling up with the pillow to my left, but grasped a handful of fluff—Lexington.

I slowly sat up and turned on the bedside table lamp, which cast an amber glow across the room, softly illuminating my Circle of Love: my three cats encasing me, embracing me with their love, undoubtedly knowing that I’d just lost my love for good and they were comforting me with theirs.

I finally fell back to sleep and awoke a second time with the sunrise, and with Topper still next to me. I released more sadness of recent events with a quiet cry. Topper rolled over to face me. He put is paw on my cheek and stared into my damp eyes. Then he licked my tears, which was so moving, I cried harder, then felt an overwhelming sense of joy at this sweet gesture by my feline companion; this near wild creature with such a tender side, which made me smile, then invoked laughter.

With that, Topper jumped off the bed. His job was done and it was time for breakfast.

And even though I’m fighting tears, I still have hope that I will meet my “Sam”…