What I’ve learned about love is that it needs to be accepted to be realized. My cat Belle, who passed on recently, taught me very specifically how this works. She showed me many forms of surrender—in this case of this story, surrender to love.

When Belle was a kitten, she came to us as a skittish being. She hid under the bed. She was born outdoors, so we set up a way for her to go outside on her own. Over time, she learned that she could explore the local “wilderness” and still be given everything she needed when she returned home. However, as much as she was clearly a tender heart, she remained hidden most of the time.

Our other cat, Oscar, welcomed her as only cats who’ve previously established their territory can do—by hissing in her face. She didn’t seem to take it personally, but it meant that, for the time being, she was on her own.

I could tell by the way Belle looked at me that she could feel my love for her and that she appreciated it. She just didn’t trust it completely. Until one day when a young girl visited, and my husband at the time picked Belle up to let our visitor pet her. Even though they were both being gentle, Belle panicked. She leapt out of his arms, onto a windowsill and, imagining she could escape, banged her head full force into the glass pane. Dazed, she turned around and meowed in distress.

I looked at Belle lovingly and asked if I could come over to pick her up. This is the first time I remember spending many minutes waiting, moving slightly closer to her, asking again, and waiting again. It became a pattern of gentleness and patience that she was here to teach. After many minutes building trust with eye contact and soft vocal tones, Belle allowed me to lift her into my arms. I brought her to the bedroom and placed her on the bed, whereupon she immediately leapt down and slinked underneath for safety.

Over time, Belle learned that she could safely sleep on the bed when we weren’t around. Perhaps a year later, she jumped on the bed while we were actually in it, and she let us pet her. If we sat up, though, she’d jump back down. Maybe four more years passed before she discovered that she could be petted if she came up onto the couch. I coaxed and encouraged her for months by placing a blanket next to me. It took more years before I could pull that blanket onto my lap.

By the time she left her body, at 21½, Belle was lying across my lap in complete surrender.

I watched my world open, and my heart open, over the decades that Belle and I lived together. Many more lessons on surrender, patience, devotion and grace ensued. For me, these are the timeless gifts of an eternal love story.