How many days have you lived today?
How many of them were holidays?
How many of them were Derbish days?
We’re in it now, aren’t we, kittens? You know of what I speak: the peppermint-swirled season when boldfaced days huddle like carolers who just ran out of cocoa.
Derby hasn’t run out of anything. Not days. Not lives. And certainly not reasons to carol-cackle directly into your eardrums.
Derby, an elastic, ecstatic holiday of a cat, has too much singing to get done in a single day. Fortunately for him, for your eardrums, and for the undermelodied world, he has learned to fit multiple days into each gift box called Today.
(He encourages you to take this as inspiration to fit multiple cans of clam juice into your coat pockets when you visit. Haven’t you heard? It’s the feline equivalent of cocoa. Bonus points for mollusk-nugget marshmallows. I think Amazon deep-discounts them on Cyber Monday.)
More accurately, Derby squashes multiple lives into even the tiniest Todays.
For Derby, of course, there are no tiny Todays. On a yellowed Yesterday not so long ago, Derby could not find a single Tomorrow. Every shop was fresh out of this hot item, at least for a cat with FeLV. Derby’s snow globe was simply too cloudy, his future too frightful, for anyone to sell him a promise.
But promises, like Todays, are not for sale.
If Derby would have life after Yesterday, it would have to be a gift. And among other things (consuming extraordinary volumes of gelatinous beef, elevating litter-scoopage to performance art), keeping the promise is Tabby’s Place’s gift.
So on the Today that gave way to bright red in the face of grey, Derby celebrated his first holiday.
It was Loved For Life day.
It was FeLV? We’re Not Scared day.
It was All We Have Is Yours day.
It was Never Wonder Again day.
And Derby’s been properly holidazzled ever since.
You may think your schedule is a breathless storm right now, a sprint to New Year’s. But consider Derby’s ceaseless scrimmage.
In the morning, Derby must convene all persons great and small — volunteer, employee, unsuspecting electrician, mollusk-nugget vendor, etc. — for the singing of the truth. The truth is that you should never miss the opportunity to tell someone you like them, or love them, or think their sweatpants are spectacular, and Derby thinks all of the above regarding all of the persons.
In the mid-morning, Derby must eat several troughs of turkey, then describe it in detail.
In the early afternoon, Derby must deliver a State of the Sunshine address, culminating in an original long-form poem about solaria in November.
In the late afternoon, Derby must feel a frisson of frustration for the gap between poultries.
In the evening, Derby must apologize for aforementioned frisson, carol-cackling repentance to the people who deliver dinner, the people who do not deliver dinner, and the dinner that delivers more delight than seventy sequined Santas.
At nightfall, Derby must rise upon all four feet to thank the moon for not falling, to thank the day for being so pliable, to thank himself for being so liable to unruly wildfire joy.
And when that smiling sun sees fit to fry Derby a fresh new morning, Derby must say “thank you!” with a new day of lives.
Derby is heavily seasoned with holidays. Derby hopes we are, too.
If the goal is to become a living holiday, we may have a ways to go. But maybe we can start by singing all the days of our lives, and all the lives of our days.
Just think of how many lives you lived yesterday. The morning may have dumped cold cocoa on your head — bad news, bad thoughts, bad fears. But by afternoon, you got that call or that hug, and you were a hope-child again. One day, two lives. Two rides, one truth.
Maybe we can take our days with a dozen doses of gratitude.
Maybe we can remember that we’re all FeLV+ cats, one vicious Yesterday away from no Tomorrow.
Maybe we can sing like Derby and holidazzle the weary world.
Happy Loved for Life day, kittens. Let’s do it again tomorrow.