The Soul of an Angel – A Rose for Billi

While a human may live from anywhere from zero to hundred some years after being born and animals for assorted periods as has been allocated to them by nature, it is heartbreaking when a human or animal passes away young without even growing up fully.

It is in little children when we see the consciousness of God most clearly charged with innocence, love, truth, humility and simplicity and it is only as they grow up other things such as pride, greed etc. take a foothold casting a shadow on their inner divine consciousness, except saints and angels who may manage to free it again even when they are old. Therefore, the soul of a small infant child is most like that of an angel even though, physically they remain young and not fully competent.

When a young soul that one loves passes away, one is saddened much, I have tried to reconcile this with my beliefs in an afterlife and rebirth and it would seem that young souls passing away in the most goodness of life are the ones most likely to have a heavenly and good after life and one must console oneself with the thought, even while praying for peace for the departed soul.

There are street cats in my neighborhood and few of them come in from time to time to ask me for a little food when they cannot find any elsewhere. A brown cat used to come quite frequently for that in the backyard and a couple of months ago she gave birth to two new brown kittens in a partially sheltered corner of the backyard. She guarded them fiercely and would not let them come near me until they were a few weeks old. After a month however she just disappeared. Perhaps she met with an accident somewhere or she would have surely come back. The young kittens howled for a day and then I started feeding them, twice a day and they resumed their life in the backyard. There are quite a few sheltered spaces for them to live there. I gave them names Billi and Tilli. Billi means Cat in Hindi and therefore these same names in English would be Cat and Tat. Billi was the friendlier and more loving of the two while Tilli tends to be a bit of a Rascal at times. Billi would come and sit by me every morning as I read the newspaper and had tea in the backyard while Till would watch from a distance.

A few days ago I shared their pictures on the net and on social media that I visit. Then three days back Billi suddenly became very sick. She had been losing weight some days prior to that too but was quite active then. I had resolved to feed her more nutritious things to fix that. Her sister (Or brother?) Tilli was however putting on weight. When Billi became sick, Tilli stayed by her side most times trying to pet her and nurse her and I too visited often, but she became weaker and weaker and in the last three days was not eating anything, whatever was offered to her until this morning she passed away. However, she was neither vomiting nor having a runny tummy, therefore what she had caught might be a feline viral infection of some sort. Today morning she passed away.

Before her demise she had moved back to the spot she was born in. perhaps she has gone back to her mother. Someone had mentioned that an evil eye may harm young lives when their pictures are shared. Perhaps it was so, but the time of death is in the same hands of the Lord that give birth and even if it was an evil eye it was an instrument of the Universe to bring about an end at the destined time, to go on and follow its own journey and karma thereafter.

Tilli pulled her out and I wrapped her in newspaper with some roses and scented flowers from the garden. I did not use cloth because that would take longer to dissolve when buried. She was later buried with full honors at a spot sheltered from any inadvertent footsteps over her unmarked grave. May her soul rest in peace and visit lovely places in the universe even as I read her last prayer. She certainly became famous with her picture in far away places around the world during her brief and sweet life. 

In my inner eye I imagine that she would be born as a human in her next life, animals that live with humans as pets often do, somewhere in a mountain village in the Himalayas. She would grow up to be a pretty girl, tall and slim with long, straight black hair, very catty, but with a good heart. I wish it will be like that. It would be the beginning of her journey in human lives.

 

Billi about a week ago

UPDATE:

A dear friend Vinod who retired a few years ago as the equivalent of the senior most IRS officer of India contributed this lovely poem for Billi

Soul of Billi

No regrets whatsoever
I'm at peace
an angel by my side here
there an angel tended me.
Life may be short but sweet
and so it has been to me
a royal burial to a cat
the world has never seen.
A soul only I'm now here
happy and so free
and this I pray day and night
my angel there may rule the earth
This my prayer to the Lord
The Earth be heaven under Thee!

with love&regards
Vinod