I have decided through all the experiences of the last few days that God is softening my heart so that it can more easily expand to contain Love - all the love that can exist in the world. I have also decided that I must work toward being a vessel for His love, and that it is my purpose to spill that love onto everyone and everything with whom I come into contact.

Friday, the day after the sentencing and the death of the Muffin Man, My Pilot and I were very blessed by so many people, friends and strangers alike, who touched us with compassion and tenderness and brought the comfort of love to us. I believe there are angels among us all the time, bringing messages from God to each of us. Sometimes the angels take human form, for a moment or so, touch us and remind us of the love and beauty of creation, and then slip away. We were visited by so many angels in the last few days, and we are both very blessed by their presence. I mentioned this to one of our angelic visitors, a beautiful and kind woman who came to our shop and talked of her own kitty children, including one who was in the process of dying and one who has gone missing. She left and then came to visit me in our second shop, and I shared with her my gratitude for her kindness, and my belief that she was an angelic messenger from God. Her eyes welled up, and she thanked me saying, "Not many people can see who I am." Even angels need validation and appreciation.

In our five years together, Michael and I have met many angels, and many more people whom we would characterize as perhaps inadvertent messengers and vessels for God's love. There was an angel in human form present when we met on an airplane five years ago - he had an empty seat beside him, but I passed it up to sit beside Michael. Periodically throughout the flight, he would look back at us talking and laughing and smile. He followed us off the plane, and kept reappearing periodically at the airport, as we sipped sparkling water and waited for the shuttle which would take us to our destinations. It really felt he was checking on us, making sure we would figure out that we were meant to be together.

We've had God's messages delivered by the post office right after my friend Dawn was murdered. Dawn was our mail carrier, and it was fitting that she and God could effect a very gentle and loving letter being delivered right when we needed it most. It came from a woman in Southern California, thanking us for helping her to choose something for her daughter, who was ill. She had chosen a petite pendant by one of our artists that carried the message "Be the change you wish to see in the world," by Ghandi. In her letter she explained that as her daughter opened the little box, the mother started to say the quote, and her daughter finished it. It so happened that this quote was her daughter's favorite, and one which she was living by daily, even in the throes of her illness. The woman closed her letter saying, "you do make a difference." In our hearts we believe this was Dawn letting us know that she felt our love.

We've been sent beautiful spirit communicators and clinical psychologists both carrying the same message - that our loved ones are not gone, that they are safe, in school and learning what they must to go to the next place, wherever that might be. That has brought such comfort to my aching heart. And "just normal people" have brought tender words and soft hands to hold for a brief moment.

I have a snippet of a song running through my head - "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure. The part that sticks for me is the refrain:

You, soft and only
You, lost and lonely
You, strange as angels
...Just like heaven.

It feels to have been written about the Muffin Man

And yesterday we received a sympathy card from our usual vet, not the one who cared for the Muffin Man. The verse on the front read


"Grieve not,
nor speak of me with tears,
but laugh and talk of me
as if I were beside you
I loved you so
'twas Heaven here with you."

Isla Paschal Richardson

The Muffin Man was so deeply, demonstrably appreciative of all the comforts, care and contact we had with him. The nests of hot laundry fresh from the dyer into which he would disappear for an entire day, only the tips of his ears visible over the edge of the nest. The paw massages, which is really how my husband was able to tame this three quarters wild little man when we first found him. He'd stretch out his paws, and his fingers would seem as long as mine. When one little paw had had enough rubbing, he'd slowly pull it back and extend another arm or a leg, and so it would go until all four paws and all sixteen toes had been duly caressed. The little treats of sardines or rare steak, sometimes bacon. Warmth - he was such a cold little guy when we found him in December, when the temperatures were 20 below zero. He'd find a patch of sunlight coming in through the window and settle in to recharge his batteries - he definitely was a solar kitty. All of it he appreciated, and he told us so in so many ways. I can hear him saying "'twas heaven here with you."