You don’t need me to remind you how hard it is to be a person.
Especially in winter. Especially this winter.
Being a person is excruciating.
Being a person is exquisite.
But being a Tabby’s Place person means never having to face anything alone.
And being a Tabby’s Place cat means taking care of the people who feel it all.
We are a soft and squishable family around here, aren’t we? Maybe there are some people out there as tough and scarless as river rocks. The rapids that make us cry only turn them smoother. The pain of the world runs down their shoulders, and they roll on without stumbling.
But we are Tabby’s Place people, who feel it all.
The cry of one kitten can disassemble our plans and put them back together, better this time. One wobbly tabby can knock us off our feet and remind us what we stand for. Our forearms and hearts are crisscrossed with scars from the fearful and unforgotten.
Love like this spills over all the banks and boundaries. We hear the world’s weeping inside our own ribs. We are the vanguard of the vulnerable, stretching to save whoever is smallest in any given moment.
It is a good way to get your heart broken. It is the only way to stay fully alive.
We bruise like plums, tumble like tears, and walk with a limp from the weight of love.
If we were cats, we would not be calendar cuties created by AI. We would be … well, we would probably be Hips.
Hips knows a thing or two about breaking and mending. Watching him work the room, you can forget his years of no play. A (submarine-sized) pearl, Hips seems to have fallen off a charm bracelet.
But Hips fell farther than that. He endured the war zones of Beirut before crossing the Atlantic to Tabby’s Place. He arrived here with wounds we could mend, but not erase.
The world left him tailless and incontinent, with a wonky gait that will never “get better.” Some call it “a hitch in his git-up.” Some call it a limp. Whatever the name, it is a reminder that Hips is broken and whole at the same time.
A limp is a curious thing. In the book of Genesis, a man named Jacob acquired a “hitch in his git-up” from wrestling with an angel. Was it worth it? We know the answer.
Love changes us for the better in the wounded places. The tears that streak our faces keep us soft enough to welcome hope again. The bravery that breaks us also builds bridges across distances far wider than the Atlantic.
Hips, “hitch” and all, still vaults like an Olympian over the gate into Jonathan’s office.
Or at least, he did.
Because being a Tabby’s Place cat means you are never, ever “unadoptable.”
And being a Tabby’s Place person means having room in your soft, fearless heart for the “impossible.”
Hips reads this update from his forever home. You read it from your own place in this weary world, the terrible, wonderful world that needs you, exactly the way you are, exactly where you are.
Here is what you helped to make possible in January:
Arrived: Snack Cake; Gin; St. Nick; Leonard; Bongo; Joy; Adelaide; Duchess; Grayson; Deku; Banshee; Alexis; Sam; Zuzu; Jill; Vera; KB; Elsbeth; Evangeline; Celeste; Luna; Cici; Cookie; Clara; Sage; Slim; Jamison; Trixie; Lilly; Raleigh; Giovanni
Adopted: Tulio & Dior (together); Bode & Magpie (together); Fabio & Fazio (together); Ricky & Twix (together); Sprite & Fanta (together); Taylor Ham; Mr. Rogers; Mikey; Tibbles; Peeka; Michael; DW; Hooray; Yippee; Huzzah; Merv; Shaggy; Hips; Florian; Bernard; Cupcake; Angelica; Spain; Leela; Bebe; Polka; and yes, if you’re counting, that’s one diabetic, two FeLV+ phenoms, and 31 absolute legends.
Returned: Dr. Pepper (readopted within 24 hours)
Promoted to the Lobby: Leo (pictured in top thumbnail)
Demoted from the Lobby faster than you can say “No, In Fact, You Are Not Permitted To Vanquish The Lobby Cats:” Leo
Promoted to the Lounge: Sootie
Promoted to the Lobby as reward for Not Being Leo: Sootie
Re-promoted to the Lounge: Leo (who won’t stop telling Ruby that he did, in fact, vanquish the Lobby Cats)
Promoted to the Community Room: Salem
Promoted to Heaven: Gin, Duchess, Forever Foster sweethearts Twinkie and Smoothie
We do not know the grief and glory that February will bring.
We do know the cats will care for us, and the “needy” ones best of all.
We are Tabby’s Place people, and we are unafraid of the days to come.