Today is the Summer Solstice and Fathers Day.
On this longest day of the year (if you’re in the northern hemisphere, that is) we acknowledge the Goddess, who is mother of all, who nourishes our crops that will sustain us through the long, dark winter.
The Goddess, or Mother Nature, or whatever you choose to call her, has a wicked sense of humor. At Beltane I asked her to help me in my search for love and friendship. Instead she sent me shingles. On the Summer Solstice I asked for money to nourish me financially since I lost a bit of money by not being able to work. Instead, she sent a kitten.
This is Midnight, as named by my neighbor.
She’s about three months old, maybe a bit younger. She’s definitely spent a lot of time around humans, so how did she end up in my neighbor’s back yard? Who knows. But the Goddess sent her there because they love animals, and now she is with me while we help her find her way home.
It’s a joy to watch this precocious child make herself at home and commence to rule the roost. She knows no fear in this home, which is a far cry from the home I grew up in, where I was often afraid of those who should have protected me.
I’ve watched Leroy take Midnight under his wing. I’ve heard of grizzled toms becoming amazing foster parents, but he’s the first I’ve personally observed. He also keeps an eye on Molly… and me. On this Fathers Day Leroy reminds me that it isn’t biology that makes a father.
At my father’s funeral I heard many people say what a good man he was. And, to be fair, he did many good things for me too. But the most vivid memories I have of him are of him often beating a very young me after my mother told him what a rotten kid I’d been that day, and me being so scared I’d piss myself. I remember his not visiting his children after he separated from my mother. I remember being forced to listen to grown-ass adults complaining to children about the other parent. I remember him threatening a teenage me because I had a boyfriend whose skin was dark.
When I see men with children and their faces are lit up like the night sky, I smile. Just yesterday I saw a man with a toddler coming out of Walmart and they were laughing and enjoying the day. The positive energy their bond emitted was undeniable. Today photos of dads and their children fill my social media feed, photos of the love between a father and child. I need those photos to remind me that what I experienced was not normal. By the same token, I remind you of what I lived through because many survived something similar, and they are not celebrating dear old dad today.
May the Goddess bless all of her children on this Solstice, and may fathers savor the love of their children on this day.
Dogpaddling Through Life 
Perhaps Midnight was a gift. A distraction of sorts for someone as good-hearted as you are.
Perhaps so. I hope she is also gifted with finding her way home, because we are already stretched here.
She should be easy to rehome. I would take her in a heartbeat!
What part of the world are you in? 🤔
Pennsylvania
Midnight is just precious, I hope things work out so you can keep her. Love the picture of her with Leroy!
Thanks. I also have a video of him grooming her. A year ago I couldn’t touch him. Now he’s healing us all.
I find it relaxing just to look at healthy/happy cat photos.
Cute puss.
She is indeed. Thanks.
Do you think you’d keep her?
I’d prefer not to.
Wellcome Midnite…yore a cutie pie!! Miss Jen you are a toetall at Lady an mee sendss **apawss apawss** to you. An Leroy two!
**purrss** BellaDharma
Hello Jen: I am so sorry you did not have the kind of Father we all deserve to have. How you feel about your Father is how I feel about my (so-called) Mother!
I despise Mother’s day I can tell you.
My Father was my Guide & my strength, my Teacher & my ROCK…..even tho’ he left this good Earth in 2009 he walks with me still.
If I were there I’d give you a long gentle ((((HUG))))
An I agree Biology does not always guarantee a good parent…dear Leroy proves THAT point!! 😉
Sherri-Ellen
I had that kind of mother too. Note she didn’t protect me from him, but egged it on.
Without going into detail my Ma handed me to StepMonster on a plater…then my little Sister. The woman was cruel & maniacal & evil.
You can fill in the blanks! 😉
I can imagine. And I’m so glad you survived what you went through. I hope the old cow is full of worm holes.
She is also the one who told him about the boyfriend. She’s such a dear. 🙄
“The Goddess, or Mother Nature, or whatever you choose to call her, has a wicked sense of humor.”
___
I, a believer in Christ’s miracles, personally picture Jesus as being one who’d enjoy a belly-shaking laugh over a good, albeit clean, joke with his disciples, now and then.
Whys it gotta be clean? He hung out with thieves and whores and tax collectors.
Indeed. So many have created God’s nature in their own angry and vengeful image, especially the part insisting that ‘God hates ______’. I sincerely wonder whether there is any real hope in a furious God who requires pain-suffering sacrifice?
I sometimes wonder whether collective human need for retributive justice — regardless of Christ (and great spiritual leaders) having emphasized love/compassion and non-violence — be intrinsically linked to the same terribly flawed aspect of humankind that enables the most horrible acts of violent cruelty to readily occur on this planet, perhaps not all of which we learn about.
Meanwhile, it seems, when a public person openly fantasizes about world peace, a guaranteed minimum income and/or a clean, pristinely green global environment, many theological fundamentalists immediately react with the presumption that he/she must therefore be Godless and, by extension, evil and/or (far worse) a socialist. This, despite Christ’s own teachings epitomizing the primary component of socialism — do not hoard morbidly superfluous wealth when so very many people have little or nothing. That’s just how upside-down (I’m sad to say) so much of institutional Christianity has become.
OK, you disarmed me. I thought you’d come here to play the Pharisee game. Personally I think if Jesus was around today he’d like hanging with the likes of me, because who wants to hang out with The Chosen Ones? Hell, they can’t even stand each other!
I don’t believe in deities. I believe in the Goddess as a force. Physics teaches us that all things are connected. Time is not linear. Matter is not created or destroyed. So those who truly want goodness in the world can help it along. But so can those who want all that they can grab for themselves and to hell with the rest of us.
As I grow older I have become more radical in my beliefs. Those with the most obtained even more money during the Pandemic. They made money off of sickness and death. The same people made money off the never ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They make money off the non-stop gun violence gripping our nation. And they don’t care that the rest of us suffer because it’s all legally done in the name of Capitalism. I feel there is something very wrong about that.
Yes, it gets quite ugly and discouraging. For me, a half-empty-glass-er, too much so. …
If by playing the Pharisee game you mean trying to convert, No, I’m definitely not.
I don’t mean to disarm you further, but what really burns me is the hypocrisy of those who claim to follow a faith yet practice the precise opposite, especially as elected officials/leaders. I’d suggest they might seek out a faith that’s more reflective of their own true values and behavior.
Sometimes I wonder whether there are institutional Christians (I mean the fans of the Old Testament angry-vengeful creator, etcetera) who would’ve preferred that Jesus had not been so publicly contrary to contemporary conservative values thus politics. I can picture them generally finding inconvenient, if not annoying, having to try reconciling the conspicuously contradictory fundamental nature, teachings and practices of the New Testament’s Jesus with those of the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament Creator.
Regarding cats, if the creator had a pet, I could see it being a cat, one with fur a dark black (like my cat, Simon). That color can be most restful. It was the peaceful color of everything before the universe’s beginning, unlike its current chaotic state.
Oh, but how could elected officials pretend to be one of us if they weren’t as fake in their faith as the rest of us?
I don’t think Christians worry so much about who Jesus truly was. Most of his followers that I see tend to find a church that teaches what they want him to be and that’s that. Or, in the case of the Catholic church, become so large and so dysfunctional that it doesn’t really matter.
He’d love this one. She has a free spirit even I can’t claim to have.
“I don’t believe in deities. I believe in the Goddess as a force.” …
I perceive the Almighty as not being in humanoid-singular form nor with gender.
Midnight looks reall sweet. I hope you can find a good home fo her.
It is awful growing up in fear of the people who should be making you feel safe.
The story of your dad reminded me that not everyone had the loving father I had. I am so very sorry that life handed you this man who was not worthy of a child’s love. You are a symbol for overcoming.
Onward.
Thanks, Sheila.
So sorry for your childhood experiences with your dad. May the Midnight’s of the world (and their owners) provide you with loving moments.
Thanks. I do love watching that feisty little girl go for what she wants. This morning she wouldn’t eat kitten kibble because the others weren’t eating that, so I had to serve some up to Yella Fella to get her to eat. 🙄🤣