Billy is fourteen years old. There is nothing remarkable about that.
But Billy is fourteen years old in both feline and human terms.
And that may be the most remarkable thing since middle school.
As a fourteen year old cat, Billy is securely affixed in “old age.”
He has lived long enough to lose important things. His first love passed away. She was the only one who remembered him young.
Now, he would have to meet faces who had only ever known him as a grandpa cat. When you lose the keeper of your childhood memories, you can feel like a stranger to yourself.
But the years do not merely take away. The years can give again.
Fourteen was not the end, but the beginning. Thanks to his first love’s daughter (who is a verified angel), Billy and his housemates (Sophie, Spicey, Michael, Joe, Katie, Gracie, and Heidi), made the journey to Tabby’s Place.
Age requires no apology around here. We Remember the Seniors. We are smitten with strange cats, “hopeless” cats, and cats who feel the full weight of fourteen.
We welcomed the old man with his gallstones. The day he arrived, his meows were loud. We cooed back with reassurance. We promised him that he was not too old, and it was not too late. We told him never to listen to people who use words like “unadoptable,” or “fat-free mayonnaise.”
We whispered that fourteen is a wonderful age.
Billy hollered back, “I KNOW!”
Because Billy is not just a fourteen-year-old cat.
Billy is a fourteen-year-old boy.
I understand if you think this is some kind of metaphor. Straightforward speech falls short of a cat. When I try to describe my friends with tails, I end up fumbling for allegory. This is why I start so many sentences like, “If Prescott was a mountain range…” or “If Gator were a Little Debbie cake…”
But I am not saying that Billy is like a fourteen-year-old boy.
I’m telling you: Billy is a fourteen-year-old boy.
This is why he outruns other cats to greet you at the door. His roommates may be younger, fitter, or more likely to get into Honors English. But Billy is the eighth-grade imp who has made it to age fourteen somehow still liking himself.
He is as loud as puberty and as confident as a Bart Simpson T-shirt. He meows with the authority of a champion Mathlete who knows tonight is “mac ‘n cheese Monday.”
He is the kid the teachers love, even after he writes “BILLY RULES” on the desk in mustard. He is the kid whose buffoonery is wrapped inside innocence.
He is Billy the Kid. He is fully fourteen.
But Billy is not the fourteen-year-old who lives and dies to be “cool.” He is both fourteen-year-old boy and fourteen-year-old cat, and he acts his age.
When you have been loved as well as Billy has been loved, for as long as Billy has been loved, you are at liberty to be a delirious dork of delight. You are not ashamed to be excited.
And Billy’s excitement is big enough to share.
All knees and elbows, he trips over himself to get to you as quickly as possible. There is just so much to tell you, one forehead-bonk at a time.
He wants to tell you that his breakfast was pretty dope, and he thinks there’s treasure hidden under the solarium, and he figured out which Spiderman each of the cats in Suite I would be, and yes there are Spidermen plural, and he can explain while you work together on a plan to get that treasure, which Billy is hoping is a jackpot of yak jerky, although a billion dollars would also be okay, and you should know that you’re okay, in fact you’re more than okay, you are Billy’s friend, and you can stay for dinner.
And come back tomorrow before homeroom, okay?
Because Billy will have more to tell you, and Billy’s mom taught him that the most important place is “together,” and also that nobody who loves anybody will ever get old, so Billy is not going to worry about “old,” and besides, he has a really rad idea for a prank to play on Jonathan, but I promised him I would not write about that here.
It turns out fourteen really is a wonderful age.
So is fourteen.
Billy’s mom would be so proud.*
*And she would be especially proud of Billy’s new family, who found no fault with “fourteen.” That’s right: Billy is basking in the love of a forever home. Too old? Too late? No way. Miracles happen right on time.
