Was he just too small to make it?
Were we just too small to save him?
Or is love larger than the questions grief can’t answer?
We knew from the start that Bump was a long shot. Bereft of his mother before he was two days old, he quivered on a Philadelphia street with his sisters.
It is astounding that any orphan kitten survives. Yet, even in this fellowship of the fragile, Bump was more desperate than most.
Weighing in at just 2.8 ounces — the size of one scrambled egg — the newborn made his sisters seem sturdy. Next to Bump, a wisp of downy bones, Bonk and Barkey looked like cats, or at least future cats.
But we are Tabby’s Place, where tough tenderness towers over every broken road. Yes, our newest family member was critically underweight and a bit misshapen. The hulking hound of “hopelessness” stalked baby Bump.
But we are ferocious in our hope. Besides, we are all a little misshapen in one way or another.
And once you are a Tabby’s Place kitten, you are guarded by love’s grittiest goalies.
Plus, we had named these newborns for three of the youngest, scrappiest members of the Philadelphia Flyers. Those rookies once faced impossible odds. But now, the exuberant Flyers were breaking a drought of defeat.
And our feline Flyers had made it to the playoffs where the littlest kitten is our MVP.
No hockey winger moves as fast as a vet team in love. Our staff worked tirelessly, stabilizing the infants with heat support and coaxing them to take bottles sized for fairies. Such frail kittens would need skilled and fearless foster parents, willing to scorn sleep and sorrow to keep their birdlike bodies alive.
Bump and his sisters found their strength in Rey, then Tiana.
Almost at once, the girls began gaining weight. Bonk and Barkey grew in strength and kitten-silliness by the day. They learned to purr and to play. I swear I even heard Barkey laugh (oh that tiny laugh!).
And life seems to love those who laugh at long odds. If Gritty, the Flyers’ mascot, were to open a cat shelter, it would surely be Tabby’s Place. A shaggy, ecstatic Muppet, he almost resembles a manic marmalade cat. Cobbled together from chaos and kindness, Gritty is a friend to the small and the strange, the “imperfect” and the innocent.
Surely, all three kittens would be as victorious as their namesakes. As the Flyers blazed through the first round of playoffs, it seemed our babies were no longer on thin ice. In love’s good hands, survival would not be “touch-and-go” forever.
And if love had all the answers, the littlest kitten would live forever.
For a kitten as small as a field mouse, Bump had a colossal cheering section. The baby whose own mother left him behind, with his funny-shaped forehead and pea-sized paws, now had his own city of sisterly and brotherly love at Tabby’s Place.
Our staff bottle-fed him through the day, warming his shivering stripes. When Bump faltered, our veterinarian persevered until she was able to get an IV into him, even though that is essentially “impossible” for a kitten his size.
Despite these heroic efforts, Bump’s victory would not be the one we wanted. Sickness came on strong, and we would not force him to keep struggling. Mercy meant the gentleness of goodbye.
But we dare not say that Bump lost.
Bump was beloved. He lived long enough to believe it.
He was 2.8 ounces.
He was enormous to us.
He leaves a canyon in our hearts that no other kitten will ever fill. One beautiful staff member noted that he was the first baby she ever bottle-fed, and she will feel him by her side in all the kittens yet to come.
Everyone agreed that Bump’s little bean-shaped head and freckled feet were perfect. He was ours. He had a name, a soul, and a place in our family.
His place will never be taken.
In the stadium beyond our sight, the smallest kitten is safe and cheering us on.
Grief asks questions that make us tremble. Somehow, love is large enough to be its own answer. Until we meet again, baby Bump, rest in the victory of the cherished.
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