If you are looking for a cat cuter than Jericho, I’m sorry, but no such cats exist.
If you are looking for a cat more complicated than Jericho, I’m sorry, but no such cats exist.
Jericho is one of the oldest cities on Earth. Surrounded by springs (oases, not cat toys), it is a respite in the desert. No wonder everybody has wanted it for 11,000 years. No wonder they armed it to the teeth with watchtowers, strongholds, and those rather famous walls.
Jericho is one of the newest cats at Tabby’s Place. Hand-painted with caramel, he dares you to stroke his soft, sweet stripes. He searches your face with eyes like figs. No wonder everybody wants to kiss him 11,000 times. No wonder he has armed himself to the teeth with teeth.
As the story goes, the wall around one Jericho fell after folks walked around it seven times. But the only thing that will come a tumblin’ down if you circle our Jericho seven times is your pride.
Jericho does not have time for quick fixes. Jericho does not have time for anyone who will not give Jericho time.
Fortunately, this is Tabby’s Place. Time is the architecture of love. Walls are known to sprout doors without warning.
That is good news for a cat whose middle name is “Without Warning.” Jericho’s life reads like one of the grittier chapters of the Old Testament, the ones they leave out of children’s illustrated Bibles.
Without warning, Jericho lost his family. Without warning, Jericho squinted through the bars of a carrier. Without warning, Jericho searched for one brick of the life he thought was sturdy.
Without warning, Jericho became a Tabby’s Place cat.
Without warning, Jericho grew walls tall enough to jostle heaven’s knees.
Without hearing his story, all we could offer Jericho was empathy and poultry. Our archaeological dig of his history came up empty. All we knew was that he belonged to someone who had to part with him in haste.
We reassured him that he was safe. We fortified him with meat and mercy. We promised he could never lose our love.
He said, “try me.”
He stared directly at us while adding bricks to the wall. He gnashed his castle of teeth.
Very well. This would take more than seven circuits. Jericho was electrified. This is just the hour when love learns its power.
If you are looking for a cat more flat than fierce, invest in a stuffed animal. But if you dare to blink into bright eyes behind barbed wire, you are strong enough to love someone alive.
The more Jericho’s broken heart led him to break skin, the more our staff swore their devotion. (I can neither confirm nor deny that our staff also swore, period. But this is a reasonable response to a domestic cat exploding from a blanket, teeth-first.)
This is the point at which I must daub the wall with a disclaimer.
My colleagues are love’s legions. They are the kind of gentle gladiators who ignore their own bleeding forearms to make sure their attacker has enough wet food. They make miracles, good trouble, and history before 9:45 am. They get bitten and scratched, but not discouraged.
I am the staff weenie with no combat experience. I just do the fundraising.
So when I tell you that the Tabby’s Place staff saved Jericho from Jericho, I mean my friends and heroes. They saw light in his window when it was still painted over. They spoke balmy peace while his sorrow raged. They left his (one-cat, staff-only) suite with new wounds and new determination to help him.
Not to cure him. Not to calm him. Not to subdue him, disarm him, or knock him down.
To help him.
If you are looking for a city where you have all the time it takes to go from angry to sad to safe, I’m sorry, but no such cities exist.
If you are looking for a sanctuary where love encircles you seventy times seven times, even if your wall never comes down, come to Tabby’s Place.
Jericho is looking a little different these days.
There is a softness at the edges of his eyes, those teardrop figs with a story to tell. Without realizing what he’s doing, he’ll pop up on his hind legs, paws on the glass, mewing with a gladness he did not plan.
He looks like a good neighbor peeking over a picket fence. He looks like a survivor walking out of the desert. Without warning, he looks away, confused by his own courage. He peeks back, to see if the oasis is a mirage. It is as real as his own voice.
He cannot lose our love.
Jericho is fortified after all.