Tucker sees lymphoma and laughs, “I’m gonna run you over like a Fanta can!”
Tucker sees orange cones and yells “bowling party!”
Tucker sees “Road Work” signs and sings, “more time in the car to listen to Willie Nelson! WINNING!”
Tucker sees Oram and pops wheelies of ebullience (which is also the name of their two-man, acid Zydeco jug band).
Tucker sees, and Tucker shrieks with joy, contents of vision irrelevant.
None of this showed up on the traffic report, much less the cytology report. Tucker was the most fragile of our FeLV+ cats — actually, the only fragile FeLV+ cat — already liver-stricken and lymphoma-lashed upon arrival. Even the titanium optimists on our vet team took care to bubble wrap our hearts in disclaimers: Tucker’s exit ramp might be close. Tucker’s horizon might be hurtling our way.
Tucker’s GPS was giggling all the way.
While we were fiddling with the radio, Tucker’s head was out the window, the better to taste snowflakes and do jubilant boilermakers for every passing trucker. While we were seeing to his only shot at survival, Tucker was seeing, full-stop, and seeing was believing that the road was his own.
While we were asking Tucker to be our friend, Tucker was talking over us: “I AM BEST FRIENDSHIP INCARNATE!”
While our vet team got to work, Tucker snuck in “End Of Road Work” signs everywhere.
When the testimonies of a human and a cat contradict, it is the duty of an impartial jury to invalidate the human account before you can count to one. Accordingly, we afforded Tucker the benefit of the doubt. This was wise. His immune system may be compromised, but Tucker is immutably immune to doubt.
Tucker never doubted that Oram was an actual angel, a licorice seraph built like heaven’s basketball.
Tucker never doubted that despair was in his dust, and sorrows in the rear view mirror were further away than they appeared.
Tucker never doubted his power to enchant all drivers, off-roading us into terminal Tuckermania.
Tucker never doubted that road work can be play.
Tucker never doubted that the road would go on.
Sure enough, the black-and-white cat had psychedelic gas in the tank. Chemo made roadkill of his cancer, and Tucker out-played, outran, and outwrestled the orb known as Oram. To watch the two of them today is to slap neon bumper stickers on the trunk where we’d packed our careful hopes. They are easy riders whose hard road has made them softhearted, speed demons on the side of the angels.
Tucker is a testament to the Tabby’s Place promise, the dream with diesel devotion under all its decals. When you let a feline leukemia positive cat ride shotgun, you have no guarantee of a joyride. Most shelters can’t take the risk. Your own heart is on the asphalt, and it’s impossible to know if it will be flattened or circled with pastel chalk hearts.
The only way to find out is to ride. Together.
You will rejoice too easily in merry signs: “End of Road Work.” You will forget what cats remember, that we are always within miles of “Road Work Begins.”
You will learn travel games, “I Spy Things That Look Like Nuggets” and “Make Oram Laugh Like A Walrus.”
You will come to full stops that feel like all the fear in the world has filled your backseat, and you will remember that we are all still on the road, far from home.
You will turn and see Tucker mid-mischief, grinning like earth’s genius clown, and you will remember that our current GPS location is “together,” which is home.
Tucker should not be here.
Tucker has a special steam roller for “shoulds.”
We don’t know what the next mile marker brings, defiance of diagnosis or devastating detour. This arrogant asterisk dots the map of each FeLV+ cat, but only because they are living creatures. We, no less than Tucker and Oram, spin mysterious wheels, rich simply because we get to ride.
Tucker sees the road and roars “WINNING!”
The only way to rejoice is to ride. Together.