When does love make its landing?
Do the wheels touch down only after some required minimum time in the air?
Or does love define its own gravity?
Fourteen cats depended on the answer.
Fourteen cats fit on six sheets of paper. They are paragraphs and pertinent information:
“Severely injured by a missile strike. Came to us with back legs burned and broken.”
“Simply happy to be in the company of others.”
“Found wandering in a daze.”
“Might need to have her eyes removed. Only wants to spread joy.”
They are one photograph each, small enough to tuck in your wallet, next to your grandchildren. We look them in the eyes across an ocean. We close our eyes and picture them in a world we cannot fathom. We have to stop thinking about it before we start to cry.
Fourteen cats do not have the option to “stop thinking about it,” and neither do their rescuers.
In Beirut, Lebanon, angels scour the rubble. People thirsty for peace pour out their lives for the smallest wounded. They do not have time to mourn. Their arms are full of survivors. They will not lay down their hope, no matter how heavy the weight.
I would tell you that they are our heroes, but the word is too small.
Fourteen cats arrive in Tabby’s Place’s inbox, two-dimensional text and tiny images.
We are a sanctuary for cats from “hopeless situations,” set in rural Ringoes, New Jersey. You know our origin story. A cat called Tabby told a man named Jonathan that love would be his legacy. Jonathan accepted the quest. The world’s most desperate cats would have a place of peace. No need would be too great. No Tabby would wander forever. No love would be held back.
Yet, not even Jonathan could predict that “the world” would mean the world.
When your impossible experiment in unconditional love succeeds, word gets out.
Lebanon’s angels surrendered sleep and self-interest, in the interest of never giving up on their cats. They found havens across time zones and borders. Quiet heroes transported whiskered survivors from war zones to new worlds.
Yet few could take the cats whose needs teetered like destroyed buildings. Cats struck by cars, cats in need of surgery, cats whose trauma was too deep for words, needed medical care and time.
In a war zone, there is no time.
But Animals Lebanon heard of Tabby’s Place.
Beirut took New Jersey by the arms and asked questions.
Could we bear the broken over the sea? Would we accept cats across five thousand miles? Would we consider these faces on these pages?
They were the faces of Hips, the hobbled clown who dreamed of a second act. They were Polly, robbed of sight but given a heart as deep as the ocean. They were Eartha, shaken by seizures but strong in dignity.
And now, they are the fourteen faces you see here.
They are lives we never knew we could not live without.
We said “yes.”
The world says that love takes time, and friendship is earned. But above the cloud cover, over the sea, you can glimpse another world.
Love outruns arithmetic. Cats who exist on paper fill your dreams before they fill your lap. You can almost hear them breathe. You don’t want them to ever have to hold their breaths again.
Tabby’s Place takes “cats from hopeless situations.” In any given year, only five percent of these family members come from outside the United States.
If our overseas cats seem more numerous, that’s because they tend towards an extended stay, due to their extraordinary needs.
Or perhaps it’s because each one is a century worth of courage.
They have seen more than we ever will. They have also seen that love can leap off the page of good intentions and land in the flesh and fur of reality.
The world quakes with war zones and questions we cannot answer.
But there are also impossible end zones where the broken can touch down.
Beirut grips New Jersey, and we grip back, because we are in this together.
You are here with us, dear readers, and you will get to know these fab fourteen in the days to come. We offer you first glimpses here. They are still settling in, less than a week into this time zone. There will be time to tell us their secrets.
First, we will soothe them with snacks and kisses and meet their medical needs. Stay tuned for the stories of these international innocents.
Love arrives early and never departs. This is Tabby’s Place.
