let lemons be angry

When I say goodnight to my cats at night, I look into their fur, thumb through their padded paw fingers, poke their noses, and think how blessed they are to have owners who care enough to do that to them every night.

There was a black and white cat who lived in my void deck. Jurong's cat-feeder, who we call the Cat Woman, fed him daily until residents started noticing her and complaining. The resident cat-hater (a gnarly old woman who had once used an umbrella to poke Fiver when he was still a stray) gave up her hating ways and agreed to help CatWoman feed the cat secretly. She was famous for hating cats so I suppose nobody would suspect her.

Many a time the CatWoman would call or come to my door and tell my mother how the AVA was going to come and cull the cats, and would we hide the black and white cat for her? We have two cats, which is full house, so we never did. I secretly thought she was going crazy.

She came one more time, a few days ago. She said the AVA had come and taken the cat at last. But she went down and rescued it and sent it to a pet farm.

This is a truly blessed cat. It belonged to nobody, yet somebody made sure that it had food everyday-not just Friskies or Whiskas, mind you, but a mixture of the best- and mobilized people to look after it. Somebody cared that it was downstairs, and noticed when it wasn't. Somebody cared if it lived or died. The cat will never be able to appreciate fully what the CatWoman did for it. Never be able to fully know how much effort and money had gone into making sure it's still alive.

The best love stories are always those of imbalance. The Father who gives everything--to the son who doesn't even know it.