There are changes that happen so slowly, you don’t notice them until the happening has happened.
Maybe you look in the mirror and see your father at age thirty-seven, which is perplexing, since you were under the impression he was still thirty-seven, and you were still eight.
Maybe a mere acquaintance becomes the person you call when you have the best news, or the worst news, or you need a sidekick for 3 a.m. French fries.
Maybe Nigel gets friendly.
Nigel came to Tabby’s Place feeling eight years old. “Feeling eight years old” is the leading cause of trembling, hissing, and most of the ways we hide from each other.
Feeling eight years old makes people bury their poetry, say nothing instead of “I love you,” and run for elected office so that nobody will know they still feel eight years old.
Feeling eight years old made Nigel dive-bomb under blankets, where nobody could nuzzle his grief. He had just lost the only Dad he’d ever known, to circumstances out of love’s control.
The day you learn that there are circumstances out of love’s control, you grow up fast … but feel smaller than ever before.
It was not Nigel’s fault that he was not “friendly.”
But, the orange mourner now had friends who were family. Before he knew what happened, he became a Tabby’s Place cat.
Nigel’s broken heart was a boulder, but we knew there was a geode inside. We would not yank away his blankets. We would only roll away the stone on our own gritty grottos, and show him the messy, living love within.
The best way to befriend a cat who feels eight years old is to let him in on the secret that you, too, are eight years old.
But first, there was the small matter of medicating Nigel.
Since Nigel actually was eight years old — biologically, not metaphysically — he had acquired a common, treatable age-related issue. Hyperthyroidism is as ordinary as oatmeal, and just about as frightening.
Still, no eight-year-old appreciates being pilled. Our staff was as gentle as second-graders braiding friendship bracelets. They blinked Morse code for I love you. They shared chapters from their own secret storybooks.
In every suite of Tabby’s Place, after we close to the public and “evening rounds” begin, shy people and shy cats share stories no one has ever heard before. Between the insulin injections and methimazole moments, the long-tailed eight-year-olds and the thirty-something eight-year-olds get real.
At first, Nigel was in no mood for stories. When you are huddled in the cleft of your own heartbreak, the whole world feels like a fault line. When you think that love is breakable, you feel too fragile to be friendly.
Nigel was so frantic to escape medication, he turned breathless, panting like a little boy who ran away from home and realized he had no plans for where to go.
But the after-school snacks kept coming, and love was not going anywhere.
Love was confusing. (Love is always confusing.) It wore different faces from the one Nigel had assumed was the only one. It was the same love, reborn in freckles and friendship that were familiar, yet not his Dad. There were people with tattoos, and people with crinkly wrinkles, and people with tuna squeeze-ups in both hands like safety flares.
Patient people, peculiar people, ponytailed people, persevering people … Nigel was mystified.
Nigel was not ready to risk “friendly.”
But, when you are only eight years old, the bravest thing to do is let someone befriend you before you can do a single thing to earn it.
Nigel received love’s offerings, which required un-hunkering from his bunker. Strange saints held treats like candles from the Church of Cheese. Meeting the light in their eyes, Nigel had to admit they were no longer strangers. They were storybooks on two legs, and his name was written in every paragraph. They were snockered with him, even though he was hesitant, hyperthyroid, and eight years old.
And this is the part Nigel could scarcely believe.
All these oversized eight-year-olds were starting to look like family. The resemblance was uncanny. They did not have orange stripes or key-lime eyes like Nigel. All the storytellers were tailless.
But Nigel had seen these faces before.
He had seen them in the secret place of his heart, where hope was still alive. He had seen them in his Dad. He had seen them in his own reflection.
Still, Nigel did not see the big surprise coming.
He simply … got friendly.
Correction: he got soooooo friendly.
And before any of us knew what had happened, we were all having more fun than eighty eight-year-olds in a bouncy house.
Love is messy.
Love is alive.
And love is still in control.