Lessons from Lucy: Be more patient with everything that crosses my path

After we said good-bye to our cat Lucy, the animal hospital sent us a sympathy card, which is a very nice gesture I'd gotten before. But inside this one was something new: a piece of paper with ink prints made with her paws.

That was cool.

My husband thought the prints were made with a stamp, but I later learned they were indeed her paw prints. "And this is her paw, too," said the woman who gave me Lucy's ashes, handing me a clay disc with another paw print next to the cat's name. I smiled.
I loved that the staff at Yokayo Veterinary Hospital had taken the time to give us a small piece of Lucy to keep. And I love looking at those paw prints so much now that it surprises me, because I found it so hard to love that cat.

She was an eight-pound force that ruled our house for eight years, her stubbornness and loud meows trying our patience many times a day. 
My husband brought her home when his friend could no longer keep her and said she would likely go to a shelter. "She seemed so calm and sweet," my husband said.
But as soon as he put the cat in the car for the long drive home, she started yelling and never stopped, turning out to be the most annoying animal we have ever lived with. She became a cat version of my grandmother: hard to love, harder to like, but still impossible to give up on because she was family.

Lucy lives on.

Our house is much quieter and calmer now that she's gone.
But sometimes I still see her sprinting in front of my feet to direct them to her food bowl, a habit that made me swear with anger every damn time.
Only now do I realize she tripped me because I wasn't paying enough attention to, or being accepting of, life as it was right then.
Because if I were living in the moment, walking in my house instead of in my head, I would remember that Lucy was waiting in the hallway to fly in front of my legs when I walked to the bathroom.
And if I were accepting of Lucy, I would know that there was no use being angry at another being I can't control. And that instead of frustrating myself and others with futile attempts to change their behavior, I need to learn to walk past anger to acceptance.
 
So now I try and look at those prints every day to remind myself to be more patient with all things that cross my path. But especially the tiny creatures who have no other option but to throw themselves at my feet.