Boxing champion Floyd Patterson tells the story of his daughter's cat... after it was run over by a car, a neighbourhood boy brought the cat home, and Floyd asked him to bury it in the back yard, which he did. Floyd's daughter was not yet home from school, and Floyd - a devout Christian - was heartbroken at having to tell his daughter her cat was dead.
He went to his neighbourhood church, got on his knees at the altar and told God, "I never asked you for anything, but I'm asking you now... when she wants to know what happened to her cat, please give me the words to let her down easy, I don't know what to say."
He went home, his daughter came home, went upstairs to do her homework, and the moment was delayed, to Floyd's great relief.
When the girl finally asked her dad, "didn't I have a cat?" it was nearly NINE YEARS LATER. And not only had she forgotten, so had HE.
The moment he dreaded had simply never come.
Floyd Patterson's faith grew by leaps and bounds the day his daughter asked him about the cat. On that day, he fully understood what a deep and profound gift had been given them both...
... the gift of forgetting.
Here he is with wife Sandra and his new baby daughter, Seneca...