Every so often in a life one meets an exceptional being, someone so unique and inspiring they enhance life simply by being who they are. There’ve been a couple of people like this in my life, but in this special case, it was a very small and emaciated kitten with paralyzed legs who inspired me.
I found some photos of him the other day, which reminded me of what an extraordinary creature he was. His name was Windmill Stumblebum, and I thought I’d write this post for him, because I’ve never forgotten him.
I hope you enjoy this story of our short friendship and the place it happened in.

Windmill looking misty.
I got to know Windmill over four months in 1992 at the Sorn Thawee Meditation Center in Chacheongsao, Thailand, where I’d gone for a four month meditation retreat - the second of many over the coming years.
I’d say at that time, in a compound covering about 20 acres, there would have been, at a rough estimate, about 30 or 40 full grown dogs - and the same number of cats - none of them neutered, so in breeding season they all give birth at a prodigious rate.
It’s like this in most monasteries in Thailand. In general, the Thai people are not kind to stray animals, so most animals without homes gravitate to the monasteries. There, the Buddhist monks and nuns, while not exactly encouraging them to stay, nevertheless give what they can to any animal that needs it.
As a result the monasteries of Thailand are home to a large population of wildlife, all jostling and competing with one another for space and food.
I arrived in June, the hottest time - the worst season to be in Thailand - a time when only mad dogs and stupid ‘farang’ like me were out in the sun. Sweating like a pig under the weight of a huge back pack, I wandered in through the gates of Sorn Thawee to find an explosion of new life. It was the end of breeding season, so the entire monastery was jumping with pups, kittens and chickens, squawling, tweeting, yapping and mewling from under stairs, bushes, everywhere.
For most of these new-born creatures, life is very, very hard. Though the monks and nuns give leftover food, the sheer number of animals competing for these scraps makes it likely that at least half of the new-born will be killed off within a month. But during August and October it’s even harder. As the wet season gets underway, most of those who survived the Summer are killed off by the huge range of diseases that come with the extreme humidity of the rainy season. At those times the smell of death is everywhere as creatures born only months ago curl up in quiet places to die, becoming food for ants, flies and bacteria.
But the monks and nuns step lightly though it all - this yearly drama of sex, birth, death - seeing but never interfering because after all it’s simply nature. They give what food they can and that’s as far as it goes - nature takes care of things in its own way.

No food left
The day I settled into the hut I’d been allocated, I could smell death coming in whiffs through the window. Looking around outside, I found the swollen body of a dead kitten under the bridge nearby. It was being consumed by a heap of red ants. Standing next to the corpse was another kitten so starved and diseased it too was almost dead. It was swaying slightly as it idly batted at ants with its paw.
To save myself from the smell I decided to move the corpse further down the bank of the pond. But when I went to pick it out of this mass of ants, they swarmed up my arm, biting viciously. So voracious were these ants, I noticed they were already hard at work consuming the tail of the sick kitten who'd settled nearby - and it wasn’t even dead yet.
I finally managed to move the dead kitten further down the bank of the pond.After a short period of confusion the highway of ants soon found the new location, as did the sick kitten, who followed the body of its friend. Though I tried to coax it away, it seemed not to want to move, so I left it there to its fate. With so much death around, and no resources to save it, there was nothing else I could do.
The next day it too was dead and covered with ants.
Over the following days, during afternoon breaks from meditation, I would go down to see how long it would take the ants to pick the two dead bodies clean, and I noticed a fascinating thing.
By the second day the ants had picked the legs, eyes and tails clean, but left the torsos intact. I found this strange, particularly because both were now filled with maggots.
I wondered why the ants were allowing maggots to consume their property.
The other thing was, I would have thought the maggots would be perfect food for ants, so again, I couldn’t work out why the ants were ignoring them.
By the third day the ants had totally disappeared though the torsos were still seething with maggots, which were now so plump they looked as if they would burst.
Then, on the fourth day it all became clear. I came back to find a long thick highway of ants carrying the maggots away. How smart is that? Rather than going through the fuss of dismembering the kitten themselves, the ants let the maggots do all the work, then took them - each one a perfect package of food.
I could write a lot more about the amazing ways of Thai ants, but I’m trying to keep to the point, so maybe I’ll do that another time.

'Mama' cat with the kids
The next day, after the morning meal, I was just resuming practice when I heard an adult cat snarling and spitting. This in itself was not unusual. It’d usually lead to a full-on scuffle then be over - another cat fight in a day punctuated by many.
But the growling and spitting went on for the next half an hour. And considering how hot it was, and the difficulties I was having staying awake as I meditated, it became extremely irritating.
On opening the door of my hut, on the bank of the pond, I found a ring of seven tiny kittens crouched around a big gray cat who I assumed to be their mother. I assumed this because she was pacing up and down, growling and snarling at them, and if one of the kittens dared move or even twitch, she’d clout it over the head with a paw. Like a chastened child the kitten would crouch penitently down, flattening its ears and glancing surreptitiously at its siblings as if to say: “We are sooo in the shit.”
Over following weeks I found this to be her usual disposition when any of her brood were nearby. She seemed to hate the sight of them. Like a jaded suburban mother who’s absolutely had it with kids, she’d snarl and spit and slash if she saw them.
Of course, the kittens, being very young, were still in the habit of following her about, all perky and playful - until she’d spin about and give them another piece of her mind, when they’d immediately crouch, eyes averted and ears flattened until she wandered on, still growling irritably - then they’d perk up again.
But as irritable as she was, it turned out this gray cat took her mothering very seriously.

The monastery kitchen
On any typical day, around mid-day, a kitchen-woman would bring food for the animals - usually a large tray of left-over rice and vegetables from the morning meal. She’d walk across the bridge and put it on the bank of the pond, close to my hut.
Of course, a large collection of dogs and cats would have collected around the kitchen in expectation of this event, and they’d all be jostling around her as she came out with the tray. But this mob from the kitchen would never make it more than halfway across the bridge, because the gray ‘Mama’ cat would position herself at the head and put on such a ferocious performance it’d stop them in their tracks. With her hair standing on end, ears tucked back and fangs fully bared, potential challengers always thought it much wiser to wait than to take her on.
Mama’ cat would hold her position there on the bridge as her kittens leapt headlong into the food, and she'd stay until the last of them had finished. Only then would she back off off and, after taking a few bites of her own, saunter away, snarling wearily as if to say:” “Kids!!! Who’d have ‘em!”
This was exceptional, but her protectiveness went even further than that.
Sometimes, particularly when I first began feeding my leftovers to the kittens, she’d make sure to check the food, attacking any kitten who got to it before her. At first I thought she was being greedy, keeping the food for herself, but she never took anything - just sniffed it to check it was okay, then she’d wander off with the usual snarls and growls, leaving the crew to dive in.

Bumhole looking sultry
Gradually over a few weeks, natural attrition whittled this group of seven down to three kittens I named Bumhole, Whinger and Butch ... Windmill Stumblebum joined a little later to make the fourth in the crew.
Bumhole had some sort of wasting sickness, so she was all bones and skin and her fur was very thin. And she had some kind of distemper that had taken away her voice - she couldn’t meow - just croaked.
I called her Bumhole because her rectum was so distended it poked out from beneath her tail - it was sort of a feature of the kitten.
Strangely enough, as sick as she looked, her grip on life was quietly tenacious. She was still alive when I left, when other, more healthy looking kittens had died.

Whinger and Butch asleep
Whinger is a ginger kitten, personality as the name I gave her. Though relatively healthy, she didn’t like to play or muck about like the other kittens - she’d just whine and whinge at my screen door all day.
Butch, (black and white) was the strong one. The rare times Mama cat wasn’t about, Butch was the one who would stand and fight no matter how big the assailant. Once I saw her stand up to a tomcat five times her size who’d wandered into the kittens territory - a huge scarred brute.
Butch put on a magnificent show, crouched with her tiny back haunches primed to attack, ears down, teeth bared - a minute puffball of fury spitting and swiping with her barely formed claws.
The tomcat paused for a few seconds, looking down as if in mild surprise. With a single clout it sent Butch spinning over the easement into the pond where she immediately began scrabbling her way back up to have another go.
Such an impressive little thing was Butch - always quietly confident, and protective of her kin.
But then there was Windmill.

Windmill in possession. This particular day, Windmill had stolen a small fish from the kitchen. He came bumbling over the bridge with it in his mouth and wouldn't let anyone, not dog, human or cat, take it from him. Check out the look in his eyes.
I never knew where Windmill came from. He sort of stumbled in from nowhere, seeming to have no family, no mother, and no territory. He just appeared, instantly noticeable by his strange gait.
You see, Windmill had some kind of spinal injury - at least that’s what I think it was, because he had no control over the back half of his body. He was filthy for that reason, because with his disability it was impossible to clean himself.
But somehow, being the resourceful kitten he was, he’d survived the obstacle course of the monastery and taught himself to walk - an incredible feat on its own considering most able bodied kittens died just trying to survive.
Bumbling along dragging his injured back half behind him, if he wanted to pick up the pace he’d get this set look in his eyes. Then, lowering his head and jutting it forward he’d just go for it, back legs wind-milling madly and his bum veering from side to side like a drunk sailor bouncing off walls. From that point until he collided with whatever he was headed for, it was a momentum driven exercise, determined by the set focus of his eyes.
But what was most amazing was the blind obedience of his ruined back legs which, spinning madly, followed the brute will of his head, wherever he went. Hence the name I gave him, Windmill Stumblebum.
The other kittens hated Windmill, because he didn’t belong. And yet he wouldn’t leave. Once he’d decided that this was the place to be (and it was, considering the constancy of food), he stayed on, regardless of the snarling, growling and slashing from the other kittens. He slowly insinuated himself into the crew over a number of weeks, simply by always being there, mooching about in the background or scrabbling along behind the pack.
As well as being the most persistent creature I've ever known, I think Windmill was the most aggressively hungry of the kittens I’ve known, because the first time I went to pat him he began gnawing at my big toe, obviously thinking it was meat.
And whenever food appeared he’d go totally mad, darting about in front of the crew with lights in his eyes, back legs spinning impossibly, like: ‘Where’s the food! Where’s the food!’ As soon as the food hit the ground, no matter if there were six or seven other kittens there before him - he’d launch himself through, plunging in head first, chewing before he’d even got a mouthful.
Of course, this manic behavior around food caused the other kittens much aggravation, but he didn't care - just kept eating.
One time I saw two kittens swipe him so hard from either side of where he was wolfing down their food their claws got stuck in his skull. But Windmill kept right on. The two kittens went into a panic trying to extract their claws but they were embedded so deep they couldn’t, so in the end they gave up and went back to eating with their claws still stuck in Windmill’s head.
Windmill’s tenacity and will at those times was absolutely stunning.

As inundated as the monastery was with animals and birds, other than leaving left over food, the Thais felt no need to care for them. To them animals and birds are like trees and insects - they feed them simply because they were alive, in the same way as they water plants. But rarely will you see a Thai person pat a stray dog or a cat or play with them - they consider animals too dirty to touch.
So it's fair to say that before I arrived these kittens had never been touched by a human, or played with. It’s understandable then, that when in my afternoon break I began feeding and playing with them, I awakened a thirst for affection that was almost unquenchable.
My teacher, Phra Manfred, asked me why I did this. I told him it was kindness. He shook his head wearily.
“This is not kindness,” he said. “You are creating suffering, because you are creating attachment in their hearts. One day you will be gone. What will they do then? They will suffer.”
He was right. I hadn’t thought that far ahead and in that I was guilty of sentimentality and self indulgence. But I figured it was too late now. The damage was done. The kittens had adopted the bushes around my hut as their territory and me as a friend, so I figured I might as well give them what I could over the next months.

Windmill taking a break from trying to walk.
Usually I’d only leave my hut twice each day - once to go to the daily interview with my teacher, then at about 4.30 PM I’d step outside to stretch, walk or play with the kittens for an hour before going back to work.
So the crew got to know that this was the time to party. About 4 PM they’d begin congregating around my wire screen door.
I’d know they were there because Whinger would bat at the screen with a paw, making it rattle, then she’d start whinging, opening and closing her mouth, bringing forth the most extensive vocabulary of meows I've ever heard. The others would just sit waiting in a ring as if listening closely as Whinger told the screen door about her day.
When I eventually came out, the whole crew would start milling about, jostling with one another, purring and curling up beneath my hands as I stroked them.
Only Windmill would hang back. I found it interesting that as badly injured as he had been, Windmill was the most independent of them all. Never once did he lose himself in an anxious thirst for my affection like the other kittens.
At these times it seems, his interest was not in me so much as inclusion in the gang. He didn’t want to be patted. He wanted to play - to be accepted by the other kittens.
So he'd sit back watching them mill around me for a short while then, overtaken with a fit of brotherly enthusiasm, he'd think to get a game going. Crouching down behind the crew with a bright playful look on his face, after wiggling his bum for a bit, he’d leap ineptly onto their backs.
Their reaction seemed never to be what he expected - they’d throw him off with much snarling and slashing of claws. Repelled so abruptly, he’d immediately pretend disinterest, becoming fascinated with a nearby leaf as if that had actually been what he was interested in. He’d prove this by batting it about for a while, then bumble off to the side to wash his paws for a while.
Having saved face in this manner, he’d then take to mooching about in the general vicinity until something else caught his interest. And something always did. Unlike the other kittens, Windmill was never at a loss for something to do.
One day, after he'd been spurned by the crew once again, Windmill lost his footing on the side of the path and tumbled down to the edge of the pond. Having spent most of his life on the paths around the huts where the action was, I don't think he'd ever been so close to water, because he immediately became fascinated as he discovered there were fish darting about just below. I was watching him, and it was if he’d been given an electric shock, his fascination was so instant and so strong.
Ignoring the fact that he had no power or control in his back legs, he edged down to the concrete rim of the pond and, teetering precariously, began reaching down to paw at the fish. “He’s going to go in,” I thought and sure enough, ten seconds later, plop, he disappeared into the water.
By the time I got to him he was already submerged, front legs paddling in vain as his paralyzed back end sank beneath him. I remember looking down at him looking up at me, and his yellow eyes seemed to be glowing up from beneath the water, more from surprise than fear.
Reaching in, I grabbed him by an ear and pulled him out and, spluttering and sneezing, placed him back up on the path. He sat shaking his head for a second, looking even more pathetically scrawny than usual, then he tried to shake the water off but only succeeded in falling over because his back legs collapsed.
When next I looked he was stalking a leaf he'd found dancing in the wind.
Two months later the relentless heat gave way to the wind, thunder and lightening of the rainy season which came like an invading army. And though the inundation of rain transformed the parched monastery into a verdant paradise, the accompanying humidity brought disease that killed off many more of the animals.
The remnants of the crew however, survived, largely because of the bad tempered care of their mother. And Windmill, the interloper, was also a beneficiary. Though still filthy, he was not so scrawny as he had been when he first began hanging around the crew, and though they still tried to ignore him, the other kittens now reluctantly accepted that he was a part of their crew - so didn't make such a fuss over food.

Windmill at the door
It took about a week of solid rain to fill the lake at the center of the monastery. It was amazing to behold, as what had previously been a fetid, lifeless mud pit quickly filled with with new water and fish magically reappeared.
But these were not like fish I have ever seen. These fish walked.
It happened one morning after a particularly heavy downpour. For the last week, the entire surface of the lake had been exploding with fish, flicking themselves into the air as if incredibly happy. So that morning I was on my way through a moderately heavy rain to the morning interview, when I found a couple of these fish wriggling on the path.
Thinking I was helping, I picked them up and threw them back into the lake, only to find more fish further down the path, again wriggling about as if stranded.
It was only then that I realized that the fish were jumping out of the lake, flicking themselves out through the rain onto the banks, then using their fins, they were struggling up to the path, then ‘walking’. Using their gills and fins, they’d struggle along, seemingly set on going somewhere - I'm not sure where.
All the monks and nuns were out in the rain, stepping over them and laughing. I found the Acharn standing by the lake with his hands behind his back, and he too was laughing at all these fish promenading along the paths.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he said
“Why are the fish walking?”
Through a big grin he threw out his arms in the rain and said, “Because they are happy fish.”
I walked away thinking in my ponderous Western way, ‘Can fish be happy?’
Then I saw a big one - about three feet long. It leapt out of the water and landed on the bank, thump, to start scrabbling away from the water up the bank toward the path.
Whole families of fish were flicking themselves out of the water to wriggle and flip their way along the bank and the paths for up to quarter of an hour, before rolling themselves back down into the water - though some were found up to two hundred meters away, up in the pine forest, either lost or extraordinarily adventurous - but strangely, still alive.
It occurred to me then that perhaps the Acharn was right. After all, human beings are happy to dive into water to swim in the watery world of fish - so it makes an odd sense that when fish are happy, they should leap out of the water to walk about in the airy world of humans.
But ... sorry, I digress ... back to Windmill.
A part of his physical disability was that he’d get constipated because his back part was paralyzed - yet he kept on stuffing food down, joyfully disregarding the consequences. So if he ate a particularly big meal, for the next day or two he’d stagger about looking like a furry black balloon. Sometimes he’d be so painfully swollen I expected him to explode in a shower of catshit and fur, but Windmill never seemed fussed by it. He’d go on bumbling about as if it was nothing exceptional.
Eventually he’d return to his original shape, though I never saw him have a shit - I saw a lot of tries, but nothing ever came out.
He’d go through the elaborate prelude of finding a spot, scratching at the ground. Then after falling over and repositioning himself a couple of times he’d squat expectantly, concentrating for a few seconds, during which absolutely nothing would happen.
After a while he’d turn and check behind him to see what he’d created, searching fruitlessly when nothing appeared, then turn around, squat, and go through the whole thing again. I realized later that he probably had no sensation in his read end, so couldn't tell if anything had happened unless he checked.
Eventually he’d give up. But the lack of completion never deterred him from scratching a pile of dirt over the spot then giving it one more wishful sniff before he left.
As I said, Windmill was finally accepted by the crew. I think Butch, Whinger and Bumhole just gave in to his persistence eventually, because Windmill never gave up. He always came back no matter how much they mauled and insulted him.
But what was more extraordinary was that as months went by I realized that Windmill was accepted everywhere.
You see, pressure of population made the patchwork of territories very complex, and very tight. Every animal had a very small area to move in without coming into violent conflict with another animal. I’d seen cats get viciously attacked if they ventured too far from my hut - dogs would kill each other for minor transgressions.
But Windmill - when he wasn’t mooching around my hut I realized he was floating around all over the place - Over the four months I was there I spotted him all over the monastery - up near the Acharn's house, down by the rubbish pits, across the lake, or over where the great hall was being built.
He was everywhere.
Where all animals here by necessity had a territory, Windmill had none, yet all territories were open to him. An impossible thing for any animal in a place like this, yet for this crippled little skerrick of life it seemed no boundaries existed. An incredible thing.
Not only that, but also unlike the other kittens, he played with dogs.
One day I saw one of the dogs follow him as he bumbled across the kitchen, then knock him over with its nose. And just as I thought to intervene, with Windmill lying on his back beneath this dogs mouth, the dog scratched Windmills scrawny little belly with its teeth.
That in itself was amazing, particularly considering the dog was ten times the size of Windmill. But more unusual was the incredible trust Windmill had when the dog grabbed him in its mouth and started shaking him upside down.
Somehow Windmill knew the dog wouldn’t hurt him, just as he knew he could go anywhere in the monastery and remain untouched.
Just as the kittens had accepted him, so it appeared had every other animal in the monastery. Windmill was impossibly loved. This tiny, crippled kitten from nowhere seemed to create kindness, trust and good heart wherever he went.
Windmill eventually learned how to get into my hut while I was meditating.
There were two doors, one a heavy wooden door, the other a light, wire-screen door. I usually kept the wooden door open all day and the screen door closed with a sarong slung over it, and Windmill discovered that if he took a running head-butt at my screen door it would slip out of its catch and open.
So for the last month I was there, he got to coming and going as he pleased. I’d be sitting meditating on the bench and I’d hear ‘crash!’ and know that Windmill had arrived.
Then I’d hear ‘scrabble, scrabble’ as he crossed the floor ... then ‘fall, slip’ as he struggled to get a grip on the edge of the bench ... then ‘scrabble, scrabble, pant, pant’ as he pulled himself up onto the bench.
Next would come the pungent odor of garbage as Windmill’s hot little body insinuated itself into my lap, settling himself down, then purring as he fell asleep.

Windmill on the bridge
After four months of meditation, I left the monastery.
A year later I returned and Windmill had disappeared, presumably dead. Another generation of kittens was fighting to survive. No-one remembered him, or spoke of him, except me.
When I'd arrived at the monastery I'd been full of self pity and doubt, and he had shown me something I'd forgotten. The worth of courage, a strong will and a good heart, and for this I regard him as one of my teachers.