People are always wailing that the world is going downhill.

Maybe people think, if they say “everything is getting terribler and terribler!” loud enough, they can slow that snowball down.

Maybe people do it because they are afraid, and they hope someone will prove them wrong.

Maybe cats are the best people to tell a better story.

In the plot line where “everything gets worse,” there are no lithe black cats in the Quinn’s Corner atrium today.

The wriggly tuxedo boy and his licorice-twist sister are out of the picture. Kitty Purry and Leonardo DiCatrio had one fearsome disease, and then they got another.

The math was mournful: FeLV + FIP = terribler and terribler. It would all seem to sum up to the sorrow that cynics borrow in advance.

But this time, gloom’s account was overdrawn.

That’s right. They made it, they are making it, and they are making the world better by still being here.

The once-stricken siblings catapult through sunbeams as you read these words. They sprint and somersault, inventing new species of “shenanigan.” They run so fast, they look like two raised eyebrows. They pause for kisses from people brave enough to be amazed.

Where are the fevers that scorched them, and the diagnosis that scribbles out names with its unmagical marker?

It would have been reasonable to assume this was not a fight Kitty and Leo could win. Immune-suppressed adolescents are smaller than feline infectious peritonitis. We all know how that snowball rolls.

At least, people “know.” Meanwhile, cats believe.

Even in the abyss of illness, Leonardo fixed on every face. If love was still looking at him through so many eyes, he had reason to stay.

Kitty reached her paw through her hospital crate bars. It took all her strength, but she knew where to find more.

Cats and people may be smaller than the too-real monsters that skulk our stories. But cats plus people plus stubborn, stubborn love are stronger than the sum of all sorrows.

And when hope wields the pen, death’s period gets coaxed into a comma. Or, even better, a raised eyebrow.

The sun in Quinn’s Corner is too warm for gloom’s snowball to roll very long. Leave the rolling and lolling to Kitty Purry, Leonardo DiCatrio, and all the cats who “shouldn’t” be here.

Our medical team is not afraid to face the worst. Our staff, volunteers, and donors are not afraid to expect the best, even if the world may scoff and scowl.

This is how we know that Tabby’s Place people are 49% feline.

In the dirge of despair, there is no break for a dance party. Hope is hazardous material. Turning things around just might turn the whole ship of cynicism upside-down.

So count us among the happy rebels. We are taking a beachhead against bleakness, right here in the solarium, with two healthy cats who “should not” have survived.

We believe in life after disaster and love’s license to perform miracles.

We believe in Kitty Purry and Leonardo DiCatrio, the FeLV+ FIP survivors with a story to tell.

Maybe people will raise their eyebrows long enough to listen.

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