I’ve never been an early morning person and for the most part I’m still not, but I’ve had to adjust to being one anyway. In late July of 2024 I lost my best friend, who just happened to be a very large (in size and personality) orange cat named Wooka to cancer. That dear boy had been with me for the rough years I mentioned yesterday, and frankly I have often wondered how I would have gotten through it all without him. He laid at my side (or on top of me) through the lengthy time that I was in bed most of the time due to the effects of medication, got me through an ugly break-up, saw me through the depths of grief, and then we made a long distance move together. Losing him was deeply painful, and I swore that if I got another cat that it wouldn’t be for a very long time.

Fast forward a whopping two and a half weeks. I had thought that if another cat happened at some point that I’d like to adopt a black cat if one were available at the animal shelter, because they are more difficult to find homes for. Well, I had been looking through the animal shelter’s site for a few days and who popped up? An adorable little five month old, black male kitten. I spent the rest of that day, telling myself that it was too soon. The next day, I was talking to a neighbor and his mom about the kitten and she offered to take me to the shelter to see him. We got there, and the shelter employee led us back to the cat room. There were so many beautiful cats in that sunroom, laying on perches, swinging in little kitty hammocks, roaming around the room, and there at the back part of the room on a perch looking right at me was the kitten.

I spent some time there petting him, and he was very sweet. When I went to walk away to think about what I should do, he reached out one of his little paws and tapped me on the middle of my back. Turning around to give him another pat on the head I see him reaching for me with his entire body hanging from that perch to the point that he was about to fall. Closing the distance before he could tumble, he climbed into my arms just as soon as I was close enough. Something about this filled my heart with love and my eyes with tears, and I didn’t even care how silly it might have looked for me to be starting to cry at that moment. Needless to say, he came home with me that day. It would be an understatement to say that he’s different from Wooka (I didn’t expect him to be the same). The contrast is so stark!

This guy is adorable, funny, sweet, has the softest fur I’ve ever felt, and he’s an absolute hellion. He’s into everything he isn’t supposed to be (more than the average cat), has used curtains and the coats hanging on the door as his personal Tarzan vines, knocks things off of anything he can reach (including paintings on the wall), makes it almost impossible to cook or eat a meal unless you put him in another room (example: I still have a mark on my arm from a few months after bringing him home after catching him mid leap in an attempt to jump INTO the oven when it was open for all of five seconds), and he rarely lets me sleep past 6am which finally brings us to the title of the post.

For the first several months after bringing him home, he woke me up every morning at 5am on the dot which was hell. He still does this way more often than I’d like, today for example. When he has let me sleep until 7 (which used to be early for me) on rare occasions, it feels great, as I am a lifelong insomniac and it usually takes me no less than an hour to fall asleep but typically much longer. With all of that being said you might be wondering where the blessings come in. Trust me, I often do too. A lot of the early morning wake-ups are done in the sweetest way. He will gently pat my cheek with his little paw until I wake up enough to snuggle with him for a few minutes. I love that part, as he’s not much of a snuggler most of the time. He loves being petted, but just isn’t really a lap cat (unless I have yarn or a pen in my hand). The big thing I’ve grown to appreciate about getting up at such ungodly hours, as long as I’ve had more than just a few hours of sleep, is that I usually have the world to myself for a while. It’s nice to be able to enjoy so much peace and quiet before most people start moving about.

Being able to have the world to myself for a little while is something I have needed for a while, and still do. Having that peace first thing really helps me to start the day in such a way that makes for a better day overall. On the days when I feel up to doing something, it comes in handy to be up before people are starting to want my attention or the world gets too noisy. So, while my furry alarm clock has been a lot to handle (please let him mellow a bit with age), there are sweet blessings too in the form of affection, laughter, and early morning peace.

What are some challenging things which also hold blessings in your life?