Dec. 22, 2011

We have lived in our current home for 3 years now. We purchased this property 3 years ago to allow me to offer equine-assisted learning opportunities and riding lessons. Before us, the property belonged to an elderly gentleman, whom we were told had quite a few cats.

My husband and I have seen numerous stray cats over the 3 years we've been here, and I often wonder if any of them belonged to Dwight when he lived here, and had managed to escape when the rest went to new homes.

Then we started noticing 1 stray cat had seemed to take up residence here. At first we would only see him once in awhile. Then it was more often. Every time he would see us he would run for cover. He seemed to be living in our old corn crib. Then I started noticing that after I left the barn in the morning from doing chores he was sneaking over there to clean up my cat's food. On rare occasions I would catch him in the barn and he would go into panic mode to escape through whichever open door he could.

Sometime this summer I noticed the cat started sleeping in the eves of the barn over my horse stalls. At first he would escape every time he saw me. As time went on he did get comfortable staying up in the eves while I cleaned stalls and did chores. That was when I decided it was time he had a name and I started calling him 'Ole Yellor', and I started talking to him while I did chores.

After a while I noticed that he would lay on top of the horse stalls, and we went through the process again. At first he would run. Then he would stay there while I cleaned stalls and did chores.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to see if I could coax him down with some food. I would put food on the ledge of the stall he was laying on. He wouldn't come down with me standing there, but if I walked off, he would come down and eat. I could walk past him and he would stay there as long as I didn't try and touch him.

Then an amazing thing happened one night. I was feeding my 2 cats first, and Ole Yellor came running down the barn aisle and jumped up on the shelf with my 2 cats, where I feed them. I reached out to pet him and he acted like he was starved for attention. He was purring and rubbing his head into my hand as hard as he could. I went to find another pan for him and he followed me around rubbing on my legs and purring.

A couple of nights later my neighbor girl was down. Hayley helps me around the barn and rides with me a night or two a week. She was able to pick Ole Yellor up and carry him around. He was purring away and rubbing his head on her chest, and just acting like he had really been missing something, and 'oh my gosh, this is so wonderful'.

This whole process took well over a year from the time we noticed him seeming to hang around instead of just passing through. And I've wondered if he could be one of Dwight's old cats.

Ole Yellor was so fearful all this time, and there was no reason to be. He could have been getting petted and the attention he now seems so starved for, the whole time.

It made me wonder about us. You and me.

What fears have we allowed to hold us back?

What wonderful things could we be enjoying if we were willing to let go of our unnecessary fears?

Fear of: stepping out, not being good enough, someone might not like us, offending someone, failing, succeeding, we might get hurt . . . . .

Ole Yellor decided to let go of his fear, and he has a much more wonderful life because of it.

What about you? Is there a fear you could decide to let go of? Just like Ole Yellor, you could have a much more wonderful life if you did.