I got married late in life.  

It was a package deal: one wife, two stepkids and two cats.  Within a couple of weeks of my marriage, my stepson brought home an abandoned kitten. I agreed we could keep her, my thinking being three cats wouldn’t require any more maintenance than two.

We named her Patches.

I was wrong. Patches had worms and gave them to our other cats. Deworming costs about $250 a pop.  Patches was an alpha cat and changed the cat dynamics in our house. Turf battles and incessant territory marking required frequent spot carpet cleaning.  

Patches earned the nickname of PITA, which stood for “pain in the a**.”

For some reason, Patches became my cat. I was the one she would wake up to feed her in the morning.  She could be sound asleep yet would come running to sit on my practice putting matt and get in the way.  At night, she liked to sleep with her head resting on my right bicep.

When I got married, I hadn’t attended church for almost 40 years. Together our family did regularly attend. I felt an obligation to model this behavior as a stepfather. While I did find some peaceful reflection time at church, I can’t really say I felt the presence of God.

That changed when I attended a religious retreat.  I felt like I saw Jesus for the first time through the unconditional love and acceptance of a group of selfless men. I learned about “God Winks,” the little coincidences and messages that happen with such perfect timing that you have to consider you are hearing from God. I was excited to learn how to listen for God in a new way.

Shortly after the retreat, we let Patches out into our yard as we always did. She disappeared. Later in the day, we started searching for her. The next morning, we woke up expecting her to be on the porch but she wasn’t there.

The afternoon of the second day she was missing, I went to walk nine holes of golf by myself. I was grieving the loss of PITA. Suddenly I heard a clear voice in my head saying “Bill, she is OK but trapped, you need to help her.” I couldn’t wait to get home and produce a flyer that also immediately took form in my head. I papered the neighborhood that evening.

I had a very early tee time the next morning. On the fourth green, I received a phone call. A man was doing rehab work in a vacant home in our neighborhood and saw Patches in the house. I called my wife to tell her where to find Patches. Immediately after I got another phone call inviting me to serve on a retreat team, an invitation I was praying to get. My golf buddies were starting to wonder if we were ever going to get off the green.

That abandoned kitten somehow had become the way our patient God opened a communication channel with me. Since my retreat, I try to sit quietly and reflect in my man cave in our finished attic. It’s easier to talk with God in a quiet space. When I do this, Patches always promptly curls up in my lap.

About a month ago we learned that Patches has cancer. She deteriorated quickly. It has been a bittersweet few weeks. She still woke me up to feed her but she barely ate. She still liked to sleep on my bicep but needed help getting on the bed. 

She is now with Jesus and I am certain there are many children in Heaven enjoying her company as we did.

We can wonder if we’ve ever seen a miracle. How else can you explain how God puts so much love and personality in a 10-pound package? Words can’t describe what it’s like to feel Patches’ warmth and purring against your chest at night. 

How else can you explain how God found a way to gather a sheep lost for 40 years?

My heart aches right now like I’ve been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. But I am also deeply grateful to God for the gift of Patches and the years we have had together. And each day my life is still full of a joy I didn’t know until I started hearing from God.

I’m thinking this is what life is meant to be. We can’t avoid the pain of grief and loss, yet we also should be grateful for our years of having what we’ve lost.  Through this conflict, we learn to appreciate the value of the gift of life. And if we realize God is in the center of it all, it sustains a joy many never realize.

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, may we all stay alert to the daily little ways God is communicating to us and telling us he loves us. May we be appreciative of all the little miracles happening before our very eyes if we’ll only just be quiet and look.

I believe God is winking at all of us, and it fills me with joy to have finally noticed.