I am not supposed to be writing this, and you are not supposed to be reading it.

But we are not in control.

Isn’t that what Charles was always telling us?

No great comedian imagines that he holds the reins. Charles was here for the thrill of the ride. His hazel eyes always teetered on the edge of a laugh, spilling over with the punch line before he even told the joke.

Charles learned at a young age that life can always be a comedy, and the knowledge gave him power.

How else to account for his survival on the street, a shred of cheddar strutting the asphalt? He knew he was a tiny orange on Earth’s obstacle course. He knew he was a Little League shortstop darting between busy legs and long odds.

But he knew he was alive, so he could not stop laughing.

We met Charles mid-giggle, after a band of angels disguised as rescuers plucked him from the alley. No sooner had he pick-pocketed their hearts, than he found them all broken. Charles did not see the red dot that declared him FeLV+ (infected with feline leukemia virus).

But his angels did not buy into the lie that tragedy is taller than comedy.

This is how I know they are angels. Tragedy talks trash among humans. It is easier to make people cry than laugh. You have a better chance at winning an Oscar if your character suffers than if she sings.

Tragedy talks a lot, but it doesn’t have much game.

The game was afoot, and soon Charles was underfoot at Quinn’s Corner. Although we can be weepy people at Tabby’s Place, we live under the canopy of comedy. We fill solariums with long-tailed heroes from hopeless situations. The most dreaded diagnoses dissolve into laps.

Yet even among our hopeful hordes, Charles stood out like a neon lava lamp.

He could widen those hazel eyes until the whole universe fit inside, or at least the whole moment, which is the same thing. Running or vegetating, in your arms or in the crow’s nest of a cat tree, Charles sparkled.

The look on his face constantly asked the same question: Dude, do you see this? We are here. You and me. Oram and Tucker. That guy folding the towels. That lady with the litter box. We didn’t have to be here, man. But we are here, at the same moment in history. Heckin’ awesome! Dude!

Sometimes he had to remind Oram of this with great force.

Our “behavior logs” record instances of “Charles clobbering Oram” so often, our Behavior Team contemplated getting matching tattoos reading, “What do you want me to do?”

This is not the attitude of an animal who assumes he is in control. This is not the posture of a planner.

This is the invincible “Geronimo!” of a guy who knows that everything is astonishing at all times.

This is the kick-up-your-heels “Kowabunga!” of a cat who can’t stop loving his life.

This is the cat we thought we would get to love for the rest of our lives.

I do not mean that literally, of course. If you should pin us down, we would all turn dutifully somber. We would nod our sad heads and confirm, yes, we know the cats will leave us before we are ready. Our wings would stop flapping. It is rude to laugh in the museum.

But when we are caught up in the moment, with a cat like Charles, we are the children we once were and will someday be again.

We are cracking jokes with a best friend.

We are aloft in the comedy, knowing we will be together, forever.

We are alive, and we are here in the moment, which is the same thing.

Which is why it is hard to know what to say today.

Charles chuckled, undaunted, through the red dot of FeLV, and we guffawed along. He was healthy and strong.

I loved introducing him to people who were afraid of Quinn’s Corner. In their mind’s eye, it was a sick bay, a Museum of Sad. Then, they met a majestic marinara cat where they had expected ghostly linguini.

The only things Charles enjoyed clobbering more than Oram were myths about FeLV.

Charles chortled through other annoyances, from a polyp-pebbled ear to the (happy) departure of his dearest dude Derby. He waxed enormous in the orange window seats that matched his moxie.

And even when deep-blue-dreadful news sloshed across his shore, Charles was stubborn sunrise.

His belly filled with fluid, and his fever cussed and swore. All signs pointed to the cruelest coronavirus, FIP. But Charles’s hazel eyes were full of light all the way to the emergency vet. Dude, there’s treatment for FIP now! We are here in 2024! Haven’t you heard? There is hope, man. Heckin’ awesome.

So we hoped, and Charles ate.

The fever broke, and we congratulated each other for reclaiming control.

We snapped death like a pretzel rod over our knees, spilling salt everywhere.

We are spilling salt again today, but the source is our own tears.

Charles should not have contracted lymphoma. He especially should not have contracted it quietly, invisibly, just while we were sending our elves and dwarves and antivirals to the battlefront. If he had to duel cancer, he should have done it when he was hale and strong, a good candidate for chemo.

We are not in control.

Charles tried to tell us this, just as he always had. He turned up his chin at treats, but pressed his forehead into ours, that brow-to-brow benediction. He turned down dinner, but tattooed “heckin’ awesome!” into our arms as he purred.

Charles left this world in the sun-kissed center of his solarium, at the nucleus of staff and volunteers. As he lay on a soft blanket, we took turns stroking and kissing him. He died as he lived, enfolded in love. He was amazed up to the final hour that we got to be here, together. Together!

We could never have put all this together.

In a thousand lifetimes, we could not have engineered the love letters that wrote Charles into our lives. We are not the authors or the architects.

We would not have given Charles FeLV, but we would not have been given Charles without it. We would not have created cats with lifespans short as a stanza, but we dare not underestimate the majesty of a year or a moment.

Charles was sent to be our friend.

Charles would do it all over again, in a heckin’ awesome heartbeat.

Charles is still here.

His hazel eyes will giggle over us every time we step into that orange solarium.

We are not in control. But we are all here, together.

And “together” is how we get through each excruciating loss. Thank you to the Charles cherishers who contributed the following reflections:

Ginny, Staff: “I will miss him so much. Everyone said how bad he could be, but I never saw it. When I walked into the room, he would always come over. He made me feel special in his own way.”

Grace, Staff: “Charles was always a force larger than life (for better or for worse). From sprinting out the door at every chance he could get, to his smug little smile when approached with pets or especially treats, to his bruiser attitude towards the other cats (sorry, Oram). He was always ‘Chuck’ to me, with the formal ‘Charles’ being used equivalent to the dreaded ‘first name middle name’ call when he’d get into his mischief. But it was always said with so much fondness. He was a cat with a personality like no other, and the frat house won’t be the same without him.”

Rose, Charles’s “Comfort Buddy” Volunteer: “Charles was my comfort buddy for the last year, and although he did get himself in trouble, I found him sweet and loving. Whenever I entered his suite, he would always come and sit next to me. I will miss him. RIP Charlie”

Allison, Board Member: “Charles had an air of royalty about him. He held his head high and kind of looked down at everyone. It was like he was a king sitting on a throne. I often felt like I was bowing to him when I spoke to him. LOL! Charles was very confident and didn’t really care about anyone else or their opinion. He loved to lay in the solarium window on his back stretched out in the sun with his feet propped up on the wall like he was waiting to be served a tuna cocktail. For everything he had going against him, he had a large presence that exuded a calm, regal, confidence. I greatly enjoyed moments of quiet just being next to him. The lack of his presence in Suite G is palpable.”

Kitty LeFey, Board Member: “Charles in Charge. Charlemagne. King Charles. The sun. Our friend, dressed in orange resplendence, was MUCH. Still, the time we had was not nearly enough. Playing catch with Charles meant catching him as he attempted yet another escape. Whether he was escaping ‘out of’ or ‘into’ didn’t seem to matter. The game was everything, and everything was a game, especially tormenting his roommates and endearing himself to all humans. The absence of Charles is overwhelming, yet will never be complete. Forever loved is very real, and no one can ever fully blot out the sun.”

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