When watching after yourself, you watch after others. When watching after others, you watch after yourself.
~Buddha

In my dreams, a turquoise Buddha circled my bed, round and round, week after week. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant dream nor was it a nightmare. It was more of an informative one, urging me to understand something I knew nothing about.

As the dream continued to appear each night, I felt the need to discern its meaning. I knew nothing about Buddhism, but what I discovered was indeed poignant considering where life had deposited me recently. I learned a turquoise Buddha signifies limitless heights of ascension, embodies the duality of living and dying, and is associated with purity and healing. In other words, this was indeed a message, one that I needed to pay attention to.

I had been diagnosed with stage 2 lobular breast cancer. A double mastectomy was followed by radiation and weeks of chemotherapy. During my second round of chemo, a friend told me I needed to stop thinking about myself and get another pet. I was taken aback by her careless remark. Not only did I have every right to feel sorry for myself, but my beloved cat had passed away just six months earlier. Yet her words kept nagging at me until I sensed she might be right. I did need something to care about, to bring myself back to life, because I had begun to realize that mine wasn’t over quite yet.

I spent hours at the local animal shelter one afternoon getting acquainted with each cat. If this was to be my companion, hopefully for a good number of years, I needed to be sure our personalities matched. I found myself standing in front of the last cage and asked the attendant about the cat wedged into the back corner.

“Oh, that’s Buddha,” she told me. “He’s been here a while. He’s about three years old, and I gather he had been abused. The lady who brought him in said her boyfriend was going to kill him.”

Was this a coincidence, synchronicity, or a miracle? How many cats named Buddha would one find in a shelter on this particular day? He wasn’t turquoise; he was a pale orange color with wary, copper-penny eyes. The cat was definitely uncomfortable being held, and the attendant told me if I adopted him, I’d never see him because he would probably hide all the time to protect himself. I could certainly understand that.

From the very first day he came home, Buddha stuck to me like flypaper. He did have issues, and when I removed a clothes hanger from the closet, he would charge at me. But after only a few days, a mutual trust began to surface from deep within us.

Three weeks later, it was time for another round of chemo. Most people don’t realize it’s not the day after treatment that’s hard; it’s the next one that does you in. When I awoke that morning, I found all the new toys I had bought for Buddha were surrounding my bed as if a protective castle wall had been erected.

I got through my treatment with the help of Buddha the cat — and perhaps Buddha himself. And even now, if I have just a cold, I wake up to find a delightful assortment of fish, mice, bouncy balls and twirly things arranged around my bed.

I have not had a dream of a turquoise Buddha in more than ten years.

— E.M. Corsa —