There are a few things in which I refuse to believe: grocery store tomatoes, the existence of “bad” cats, settings in which it is inappropriate to wear a scrunchie, and coincidences.
But, if you’re on the fence about that last item, let me put up my hair, call Obi, and see what we can do.
The first thing you should know about Obi is that he is an orb of pure goodness and unquenchable light in the form of a cat.
The second thing you should know about Obi is that he came to Tabby’s Place the same week that Pitbull and 21,141 of his fans set the Guinness World Record for largest gathering of people wearing bald caps.
I told you, there are no coincidences.
To understand the magnitude of this miracle, we must go back a little further. Back when Mr. Worldwide had just begun to dream of making 21,141 people bald, a furry grey fireball knew exactly what he wanted.
Obi wanted to taste everything.
When you are an orb of pure goodness and unquenchable light, you do not believe in “bad” things. You believe everything is possible and probably delicious. You do not believe in “bad” luck.
You believe love holds all the cards.
You believe that being born a tabby cat is the greatest thing anyone could experience.
You believe tomorrow will taste better than today.
You believe that, if you should get into trouble, goodness and mercy will come and find you, even if they have to cross the Gobi, because you are Obi.
You also believe that hair ties look like Spaghetti-O’s.
And where there are Spaghetti-O’s, there are sometimes meatballs, and where there are meatballs, there is proof that both Chef Boyardee and God love cats named Obi.
And so, with a heart full of love and a belly ready for adventure, Obi ate hair ties.
Many, many hair ties.
It may as well have been 21,141 hair ties.
All at once, our noble Obi was a knot of fear. He had made a terrible mistake. His impulsive snack had no Alfredo sauce, only elastic. The sham spaghetti was turning all too al dente inside.
Without emergency surgery, now, the world was about to lose its brightest orb of pure goodness and unquenchable light.
The world could not handle that.
If the world depended on coincidence, we would be telling a tearful story today.
But instead, we are telling your story.
Because this time last year, long before you ever heard of Obi, you made a decision that was anything but an accident.
I don’t know what your day looked like. Perhaps you’d just eaten an unimpressive tomato from the supermarket. Maybe you’d lost your favorite tie-dye scrunchie in a mosh pit. Maybe your cat curled up like a calamari in your lap, just as your tears were about to fall, and you remembered how it feels to be saved.
But something stretched your heart, and you looked at the brokenhearted world, and you said, “world, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to untie some knots. I’m going to save someone smaller than me.”
And you donated to the Linda Fund.
We tucked your gift away, safe and ready for the day someone would need you.
And when a grey tabby cat ate hair ties, you met him in the ICU.
When Obi arrived, with his innocent eyes, swollen tummy, and bald-faced needs, we had no time to fundraise. He would have been gone before we could scrawl the word “help!”
But the Linda Fund was the living promise that he was not too late.
Every year, we ask you to replenish this reserve for Obis in crisis. Every dollar you donate turns into emergency care. Every cat who “should not be here” becomes your cat.
And, every gift to the Linda Fund is insurance against “coincidence.”
It is a great thing to care about a cat you know, whose face is embroidered into your heart. But it takes the biggest heart to hold a cat you’ve not yet met, loving him simply because he needs you.
It turns out, Obi was absolutely right.
Goodness and mercy were following him, even on the worst day of his life.
You were there when he needed you. Today, unscrunched and unafraid, he feasts on unconditional love.
Which brings us back to Pitbull.
When the emergency vet called with the news that Obi’s surgery was a success, jubilation filled the land. We talked about the many meatballs we would give him. We talked about how you saved him with your donation this time last year. We talked about how someone was going to come in looking to adopt a grey tabby cat, and they would end up with an orb of pure goodness and unquenchable light.
Denise remarked, “given how much Obi likes to eat hair ties, it would probably be best if his adopter was bald.”
And, just down the Eastern seaboard, Pitbull provided 21,141 candidates.
The next time you’re in a hairy situation, I hope you will remember that there are no coincidences.
But in the meantime, please donate to the Linda Fund before 9/30. Your donation will be matched. You will save the cat who crashes into crisis a few weeks or months from now.
He will be your cat all the days of his life.
Everything will be possible.