ON FAMILY ~ Tedy's Choice...

At the age of 45, writer Regina Brett wrote a column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer listing 45 lessons that life had taught her thus far. As a breast cancer survivor, many of those lessons were learned the hard way. Five years later she added five more lessons rounding her list up to 50 and turned her popular list into a book called God Never Blinks. I found her list to be entertaining, inspiring and thought provoking. I thought I would go through each of her lessons learned and write about how that lesson has or has not come up in my own life, now that I am over 40 and feel old enough to have finally learned something.

"Yield."

~ LESSON #49

Yield, verb - To surrender or submit (oneself) to another.
Sammy is about to turn a year old the end of this month. Of all of the wondrous things we've witnessed since he joined our little Bumble world, perhaps the most amazing is that not once has our beloved cat, Tedy, raised a paw towards him in any way.
Since the day Sammy was brought home, Tedy has embodied the definition of "yield." At first, I think this was more because he was curious and unsure of who this little hairless cat was living in our home. But as the weeks went by, and it was proven that Sammy was here to stay, Tedy made a choice. He could have lashed out in anger, fear or jealousy. He could have swatted, jumped on or otherwise pestered or endangered baby Sam. But he didn't. He decided instead to yield.
He became a protector, a pal and a patient pet. He has been content to observe, to tolerate overzealous little fingers and to find ever higher perches out of harm's way. As Sam has become more and more mobile, I expect that surely this will be the stage when Tedy revolts. Where he will refuse to yield to the pesky kid. But it appears they have both grown comfortable with each other and their boundaries, making life more enjoyable for all parties involved.
Every now and then, Tedy will steal one of Sammy's toys - it is torture I'm sure to watch balls roll around everywhere and not pounce on one every now and then. In those moments, it is Sam's turn to yield. He does so with glee, clapping and smiling at his furry cat...momentarily...before chasing after him. It seems Sam needs to take a page out of Tedy's yielding notebook more often.