It is a fine thing to be new.
It is a far better thing to be known.
As you know, we are in Linda Fund Matching Challenge season at Tabby’s Place.
The Linda Fund is many things.
It is the critical reserve for our cats’ emergency and specialty care.
It is the giant pillow to catch falling friends.
It is the welcome wagon for cats who arrive in agony. It is the love that meets them before they have names. It is the “yes” that greets them at the door.
But the Linda Fund is not just for new faces.
If we had it our way, the last sad day of a cat’s life would be the day before they come to Tabby’s Place. Everyone here would enjoy uninterrupted good health, unlimited poultry, and unconditional love, for a minimum of thirty-eight years. The Linda Fund would only be necessary for cats who arrive in crisis.
But “crisis” does not consult us.
We did not expect the venerable Taylor Ham to be a “Linda Fund cat.”
The tuxedo with the fringed ear and the “old-man-fond-of-Funyuns” belly was a known quantity. As the lardy marquis of our Lounge, Taylor lived well with diabetes, dental disease, and a chronic provolone deficiency.
We knew how to care for him. He knew how to care for us. He warmed himself over our ramen bowls and taught us how to impersonate a walrus, a highly marketable skill in today’s economy.
But crisis had its eye on him all along.
You never see that gnarled hand coming out of the sky, the claw that clasps someone you love.
It was supposed to be a routine procedure to remove the remaining rapscallions among Taylor Ham’s teeth and roots.
The news flashed like an electrical storm.
What? He was having a rare reaction? An immune response? Did you say ketoacidosis, the dread of all diabetics?
Crisis is flamboyant. It breaks your heart, then pulls on its steel-toed boots. It is crass and classless. It jumps up and down on your wallet. It does not think you can afford all this fear. It does not think your reserves can cover its demands.
Crisis does not count on the Linda Fund.
But the Linda Fund means no cat gets counted out because of cost.
Our Taylor, our treasure, was an old friend and the newest Linda Fund cat. There was no time to fundraise. He would be gone if we were not ready for this hour.
You never see crisis coming. But love sees the world as it is, broken and glorious all at once. Love is ready and sturdy.
Love may not know exactly what new and old friends will need.
But love knows that “no” will not be the answer.
Love saved Taylor Ham. He is back to the Lounge, doing his best impression of a sea lion. He is off to nursing homes, in our Aged to Purrfection program. Our certified Therapy Cat promises the old that they are seen and known.
He is adored and unafraid.
This is the result of your love.
Love led you to give to the Linda Fund last year. You knew someone would need you. You had no way of knowing it would be Taylor Ham.
Perhaps it’s for the best that we didn’t know it would be him. Our hearts are hardy for crisis when it comes, but not before.
Crisis came for the wrong cat.
Crisis assumed that love’s greatest feats are reserved for the new and the thrilling.
Crisis has never understood Tabby’s Place, and it never will.
The thing about the Linda Fund is that it sees no difference between new arrivals and old friends. Whether you have been a Tabby’s Place cat for ten minutes or ten years, you are as new as an epiphany and as known as a cherished child.
Every hour with you is a gift.
Love is the only guarantee, but it’s the only one we need.
Please help love to stay ready.