Faithfully

Every morning I stand where we once stood,

Waiting for the wheels that go round and round.

Bringing the big yellow school bus to a stop

And spilling sudden, noisy life into the street.

And for a moment, I feel the joy of finding you again.

The Morning Commute

There is a particular kind of silence that exists only in the blue-grey light of a coastal morning. It’s the hour when the world is still holding its breath, trying to delay the bustle of the coming day. In our house, that sleepy hour doesn’t belong to the dawn nor to the bird chorus in the backyard. It belongs to a very small, very determined, very senior lady.

She is Uma Maya, Queen of Cats and Empress of Chatsford Hall. She is sovereign; I am merely her footman.

Each weekday morning, she calls to me about ten minutes before the big yellow school bus arrives on the corner where we live. And, as always, I find her waiting for me at the foot of the staircase.

She doesn’t pace, and she doesn’t fret. She simply occupies the space with the gravity of a queen awaiting her carriage. She knows the neighborhood schedule better than I do; she knows that somewhere, several blocks away, a yellow school bus is warming its engine, preparing to make its grand entrance into our little theater of the everyday.

She looks at me, then at the stairs. Scientists call this referential signaling, but in the quiet of the hallway, it feels more like a shared secret. I am ready, her gaze says. The bus is coming, and I'm ready to take my place at the upstairs window.

I approach, and we perform the ritual that animal behaviorists call the start button. I reach down, and she makes a slight, graceful squat; a tiny physical adjustment that signals her consent. It’s the feline equivalent of granting permission to begin the ascent. I slide my hand under her, and she settles her weight into my palm with a trust so complete it’s humbling.

As I move up the stairs with her, I’m no longer simply a blogger or a food guy. I'm a voice‑activated mobile platform. I am the hand‑elevator.

It was always you and me, right down the line,  

Two parts of a whole, inseparable.  

Now the world feels like circus life under a big top,  

A strange, loud show that goes on without us,  

And I find myself searching for a reason to smile. 

We move in a kind of fluid dance. She doesn’t stiffen; she leans into the lift. As my balance adjusts to climb the stairs, she shifts in my hand, mapping my movements as an extension of her own aging limbs. For these few seconds, we are a single unit; together, we negotiate a terrain she can no longer manage alone.

At the top of the stairs, I place her onto her throne, a padded oval bed with a raised border, perched just high enough in the window to give her a clear view of the street and the waiting school children.

The transformation is instantaneous.

The vocal Project Manager who meowed with increasing urgency until I appeared is gone. In her place sits the Silent Observer. She enters a state of sensory hyper‑focus; a feline flow state in which all would-be distractions are filtered out. She listens only for the squeal of tires and the hiss of air brakes.

When the bus finally appears, that giant, flashing, yellow IMAX event, she doesn’t move a muscle. She simply stares, a biological tripod recording the data of the morning and confirming that the world is operating exactly as she predicted. 

There is an intellectual satisfaction in her stillness: the bus is on time, the territory is secure, and her hypothesis of the universe remains intact.

I watch her watching the world, and I’m struck by the depth of the contract we’ve signed.

Being apart isn't easy on this old man.  

Without you, the days stretch out like an empty road,  

And I find myself drifting through space and time,  

Feeling a little lost in the quiet parts of the afternoon. 

But you are never truly far away;  

The critics and skeptics like to say that pets are merely creatures of instinct, driven by the simple gears of hunger and habit. But the critics aren’t there at 6:40 a.m. They don’t see the intentionality in her eyes or the way she “directs” me to solve the limitations of her aging limbs. They don’t feel the weight of a creature who has decided, after years of shared history, that your hands are the safest place in the world.

The bus pulls away, its lights fading in the distance, and the show is over. Uma exhales a deep, satisfied sigh. The mission is accomplished. She doesn’t need to stay for the credits; she simply nestles into the soft border of her bed and drifts off to a satisfied sleep, no doubt dreaming of big yellow school buses. 

And I am left standing in the hallway with the feeling that, at least for today, everything is as it should be. 

You are forever in my mind,  

A constant memory through the seasons.  

And so I keep my station here at the curb,  

Waiting for the morning sun on that big yellow school bus;  

Still yours, faithfully, forever.

About Faithfully

Faithfully is a song by the American rock band Journey, written by keyboardist Jonathan Cain. The song has enjoyed enduring popularity and has been hailed as one of the greatest power ballads ever recorded.