I just read that September is National Happy Cat Month. As an owner of a cat, I want to wish everyone a "Happy Cat Month." This might seem trivial during these dangerous, trying, and for most of us "unhappy" days, weeks, and months. I have been most grateful for my cat during these COVID times. She has been something for me to hug and feel close to. There is something very comforting about touch, even if it's an animal.
My whole community was recently gone from the house for an entire week. I was welcomed home by a decidedly anxious, fearful, and somewhat angry cat. My cat, Shug, was a rescue; she had been abandoned as a young cat, and I'm certain she suffers from separation anxiety. So I know how instinctively she doesn't understand there not being anyone at home, especially after a year of having us all home, 24/7.
So if a cat suffers from separation anxiety, how must we humans have suffered over the past 18 months, being separated from one another? How must refugees suffer not only from the violence they are escaping, but from the separation they are experiencing from their loved ones, and all that is familiar to them? How must those feel who are escaping from Afghanistan? Haiti? Louisiana? Children who are suddenly separated from a parent who has died, or who has left? Children separated from mothers and fathers at our border?
Let us pray for all who suffer from separation: from love; country; familiar food and smells; language; brothers and sisters; mothers and fathers; friends; neighbors.