I originally titled this blog post, “Forever Loved: Too Many.”

That would not have been inaccurate.

But it would not have born witness to the cats we loved one by one.

We have never majored in “many” at Tabby’s Place.

Yes, we yearn to save the greatest number of lives possible (and just crossed the 5,000 cat mark).

But our calling is to the ragged and tattered, the fragile and fractious, the bewildered, misunderstood, and love-starved “least of these.”

We could be well past 5,000 cats if we said “no” to the ones who need so much one-on-one attention.

But what is attention for, if not for cats who have never been the center of anyone’s world?

Why are our hands so humble, if not to hold someone smaller than ourselves?

Our cats are mere smidgens by the standards of statistics. They are feathers in the balance of “big things.”

And they are everything to us.

So when even one of them leaves us, it is too many.

Pepita was worth multitudes.

Meek as the first gleam of dawn, she hid her greatness inside her littleness. She was named for a seed, a shy thing small enough to tuck in your pocket.

But, in good soil, a pepita will yield pumpkins sweet enough for pie.

And, tucked in our hearts’ front pockets, Pepita nourished everyone she met.

Invincibly innocent, she came to us because she was incontinent. But, as is always the case, she really came to us because we needed her.

For over a decade, the little pumpkin seed grew roots into numberless lives. She loved us so tenderly, we all became bigger.

We wept for joy when Pepita grew tendrils into our Director of Operations’ soul. Danielle brought her home, expecting an all-too-brief season of Hospice care. As weeks plumped into months, it seemed love had turned Pepita immortal.

This was not the case.

For one small cat, we could water the world with our tears. Yet grief was about to turn torrential with a litany of losses.

Flanked by Aries and Steven‘s departures, Pepita’s passing was already many times “too many.” But the waves kept breaking. In a brief span, we lost the dowager duchess Miss Kitty and two of our tinies, kittens MJ and Beso.

Tell me you can only feel a little grief for a kitten, and I will tell you that I hope you someday learn love’s real measure.

I want that for you, even though I know it will break your heart like never before. I want that for you, because it will grow your heart to full size.

Although MJ would never grow larger than a marigold, he made the most of his summer on Earth. He was plucked, sickly, from a city shelter, but bloomed with abandon. Wild with kitten wisdom, he schooled us in the bravado that is the birthright of the beloved.

The light of his foster family’s eyes, MJ is not extinguished even in our anguish.

When three newborns fell motherless into our arms, days after MJ’s passing, we vowed to warm them with his light.

The littlest baby looked like a petite Pepita. We named him Beso, Spanish for “kiss.”

As tiny as a term of endearment, Beso was now in the place where love has no terms and conditions. We know how to kiss a days-old kitten on the forehead, even if his downy body is pierced with mysterious wounds. We know that this is the big work of our lives.

But, mere hours into his time as a Tabby’s Place cat, the injured infant kissed the face of Pepita.

The losses were too many.

We clung to each other, and to the ill-mannered miracles that galloped straight into our grief. As stubborn as love, joys interrupted sorrows mid-sentence.

Our most effervescent paraplegic, Peabody, bubbled into the arms of an amazing adopter. Clifford, after a long battle with ringworm, returned to his sun-kissed solarium.

Somehow, joy always sloshes its galoshes waist-deep in our river of tears.

As they sprint down our cheeks, those too-many tears water a promise.

We will love the next cat as the center of the universe.

We will glimpse their family resemblance the moment the carrier or cardboard box opens.

Whether the next one is a newborn tabby or a calico creased with years, they will be the one who matters.

One by one by one, we will love without measure, because we were loved by Pepita, MJ, and Beso.

In their littleness, they restored us to full size.

They are everything to us.

Forever.

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