https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJck1pNVdlQ

Buster’s Lessons

When Buster stopped showing up every morning, it took me a few
days to notice. His absence wasn’t loud; it was subtle, like a room
missing one small piece of furniture. He was always there, beside
Cactus, getting his morning treats and sprawling out lazily for the
rest of the day. They were a pair—inseparable in their odd
routines, their quiet camaraderie.Cactus seemed to notice first. She wandered a bit more, her path
less predictable without Buster trailing along or leading the way.
They used to walk side by side, sleep in the same sunny corner, and
make fleeting alliances with the other barn cats. Together, they were
honorary barn cats—half-domesticated, half-wild, free to roam
wherever the day took them.Buster was different, though. I used to call him “Evil Rags,”
a nickname that made me laugh but somehow fit. He looked like the
darker, more sinister twin of another barn cat, Rags, who had been a
fixture for a while. Rags, though, was softer, sweeter, more
predictable. He had a good story—a temporary resident returned to
his original owner after a whirlwind of domestic chaos.Rags had been surrendered during a breakup, and when the dust
settled, his owner came back for him. A happy ending. It was easy to
root for Rags—he was the kind of cat people wanted to see safe and
loved.Buster wasn’t like that. He didn’t belong to anyone, not
really. He spent his days laying in the tractor, terrorizing the
shelter dogs, and doing reckless, inexplicable things that sometimes
made me laugh and sometimes made me shake my head. Buster wasn’t
there to be loved or claimed—he was there to exist,
unapologetically and entirely on his terms.And this wasn’t even the first Buster I’d met. There was
something about the name that seemed to belong to cats like
him—scrappy, unpredictable, magnetic in their way. Every Buster
I’ve known has been like this: a little chaotic, a little wild, but
unforgettable.When I finally noticed he was gone, I felt strange. Not quite
sadness, not quite regret—just absence. The kind of absence that
makes you replay their routines in your head, wondering if you missed
something important.I’d learned a lot from Buster without realizing it. He wasn’t
a lesson you set out to learn; he was a lesson that sneaks up on you
when you’re not looking. About freedom, about living outside the
lines, about the small, reckless joys of just being.Buster didn’t teach me to love the quiet moments or savor the
sunshine. He taught me that sometimes, the world needs a little
chaos. And maybe, just maybe, that chaos isn’t meant to stay
forever—it’s meant to pass through, to leave a mark, and then
disappear, just as suddenly as it arrived.