Two hearts beating

At 7AM earlier in the week, I went to the kitchen to pour a glass of water from the jug that sits next to the window far right of the sink. At the bottom, huddled in 35mm of water, was a shivering “Little Pygmy-possum”.

I picked up the very scared tiny creature who, most likely assuming that I was about to eat it, tried to escape from my hands. It’s fur was totally saturated and the little guy would, certainly be suffering from hypothermia. I grabbed the towel off the stove handle and wrapped it around the squirming ball of wet fur. Next, I walked over to the reading corner, sat down and opened up the towel enough to put the Pygmy-possum directly against my heart and skin warmth. Within a few minutes all was quiet beneath the towel and my hands.

I sat for an hour this way. I meditated. I thought how six months earlier I had the first of two total knee replacements with the second TKR operation just three months ago. Following the second operation I started to have severe bouts of atrial fibrillations of the heart lasting up to 13 hours. The short story is that I’m now on beta blockers to keep my AF under control.

The Pygmy-possum is pressed against my heart. Two sentient beings of this earth wanting to live a life more-or-less stress free.

Ever so slowly I began to feel movement so I opened up the towel to take a peek inside. Tiny bulging eyes peered at me. Then it started licking itself; doing what it knows best when wet. From nose to tail it cleaned off excess water, even turning over onto its back to lick its belly fur while occasionally turning its head in my direction eyeing me eyeball to eyeball, mammal to mammal. Eventually the Pygmy-possum moved over to a slightly dryer part of my hairy chest, curled up into a little ball and started to sleep now that it felt safe in its little cocoon of human warmth.

At 8:30AM, I carried him/her over to the kitchen counter and said my good-byes as it nimbly scurried over to find a new hiding place behind the cups and bottles.

The photo above was from some years ago when a similar thing happened, but whether the same or different Pygmy-possum, it was still pure delight to hold and provide warmth and protection to something so small and precious.

At 9AM, my heart felt in the best shape ever.