She is not responsible for making the donuts.
It’s below her pay grade to fold Berry‘s underpants.
Sadie writes her own job description.
Sadie’s job description is seventy-seven pages long, single-spaced. Seventy-six of those pages are an appendix entitled Sausages And The Eating Thereof, with flowcharts about kielbasa, chorizo, and the wider world of wursts.
But we shall focus on the first page.
Sadie’s foremost responsibility is World Sadiefication. That may sound ambitious, but this is a tabby who has never dreamed small.
Sadie was ambitious from the hour we met her, in 2019. Inexplicably abandoned by people who said outright that they “did not want her,” she knew what it meant to be overqualified and underpaid.
But Sadie was not about to quit her calling.
She fired the sluggards named “doubt” and “despair.” She hired “hope,” “heft,” and “self-confidence.” She demonstrated her proficiency at head-bonks, forgiveness, and long oratorios of opinion. She clowned, she purred, and she hurled her pumpkin head into us for hugs.
Sadie believed in herself.
Sadie believed in us, even though we were people, with the same qualifications and weird inedible sausage-y fingers as the former staff who had surrendered her. (Sadie has confirmed, repeatedly, that our fingers are inedible. Sadie will confirm again as necessary.)
Sadie did not believe she had to accomplish anything to accomplish greatness.
So, it was no surprise when our sturdy lady secured a business meeting with a VIP. The adopter was infatuated. Sadie hired her on the spot. For the next seven years, they excelled at the highest skill: loving someone greatly.
But as mighty as Sadie may be, “stopping time” is not in her job description.
Her beloved person grew ill and passed away. Sadie’s proud head drooped low, as loss rewrote her world.
“Once a Tabby’s Place cat, always a Tabby’s Place cat.” Sadie returned to her old position. We welcomed her back, as our boss and our beloved. But this time, her job description included grief.
Grief’s tasks are as individual as tabby stripes. For the brokenhearted cat shaped like a barrel of bourbon, grief looked like pouring out hisses and growls.
She wanted us to know that her chin felt the absence of her mom’s soft hands. She wanted us to know she was angry and confused. She wanted us to know that biting us helped, at least a little.
And this is leadership at its finest.
Sadie’s scowls and howls were a seminar on trust. For all that she had lost, and gained, and lost again, she was still talking to us. She was still paying us in the gold of her glowing eyes, believing we would believe in her no matter what.
She was still paying us the compliment of confidence that she did not need to earn her place here.
She grieved, and she gnawed our knuckles, and she gave us the greatest assignment: just to be here, together, through all the foibles and feelings.
Sadie’s job description does not include perfection.
(LET THE RECORD CLEARLY STATE THAT SADIE IS PERFECT. She is more perfect than protein. She is more perfect than poetry. She is more perfect than a tower of sausage patties stacked so high, astronauts can reach out and grab one for a space snack. We are simply acknowledging the hypothetical that Sadie does not have to be perfect to be permanently adored.)
Being mere humans, with fumbling fingers and entry-level prayers, we knew we could not command Sadie’s sadness to heal. Our job was humble: simply to keep a promise that all was not lost.
Sadie’s job title was still Beloved. No one is ever dismissed from the position of Tabby’s Place cat.
And these days, no one underestimates Sadie.
The big, bawdy lady with the big, Sadie goals is taking on new responsibilities. She is our foremost forensic detective in the catnip laboratory, qualified to discern between generic catnip, good catnip, and the goOooOOOooOood catnip that causes even humans to hear colors and start humming Phish songs.
She is the executive vice president for Big Toys, the ones larger than a cocker spaniel and designed for hugging, kicking, or hug-kicking.
She is in the prime of her life and the peak of her powers.
She is writing her job description as she goes along.
And she is writing ours, too: Be here, together. Forgive. Feel what you feel. Say what you mean. Stay large. Expect life to accommodate your size. Hug and kick as needed. Receive love’s tenure. Always be Sadier than you were yesterday.