You know Cupcake and Cupcake and Cupcake.
But Cupcake the Fourth was the best-kept-secret recipe.
Merrily feral, this petite vanilla bean had no need of frosting. Cupcake flourished in her outdoor cat colony, where sunbeams are rainbow sprinkles, and the stars light birthday candles every night.
To our ooey-gooey hearts, Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) can feel bittersweet. We cling to the classic cookbook for happiness, where love ladles every cat into a lap.
We want them tied to our apron strings, safe in our muffin cups. We don’t mind if they are salty like Olive or a little extra baked, like Chip. We just want them in the cozy kitchen.
But loving a cat means loving them as they are.
They are souls, not Squishmallows.
They are family, not figments in a storybook. Or cookbook, as the case may be.
So, true love for a “true feral” is rich with respect. We meet their needs and honor their wildness. They are Tabby’s Place cats like any other, only outdoors.
Devoted caregivers keep their bellies full and their custom cabanas warm in winter, cool in summer. Vigilant for signs of sickness, our volunteers are like patient bakers who keep a watchful eye on the cupcakes, resisting the urge to open the oven door and poke them every five minutes.
But, at the scent of trouble, they leap into action. And when Cupcake the Fourth fell ill, she became everyone’s first priority.
Stoic and sturdy as bran, feral cats hide sickness until they can’t. Seemingly all at once, the little grey-and-white cat turned as frail as meringue. Old age gnawed hard, dealing out neurological symptoms and hyperthyroidism. A lung nodule turned out to be cancer.
Fortunately, Cupcake was a Tabby’s Place cat.
When you are a Tabby’s Place cat, you have everything you need to thrive. It doesn’t matter whether you are gooey as ganache or as gnashing as Godzilla. You live under the umbrella of unconditional love.
At first, Cupcake protested. She did not order our sweetness. She looked into our smitten eyes and saw a bunch of simpletons as airheaded as croissants. Clearly, we did not understand. She was a double shot of espresso. We were Shirley Temples with little paper umbrellas.
She did not ask to see this dessert tray, with tiers of medication, and people warbling “I love you.”
Could she please take her order to go? Well … no.
We do our best to avoid telling cats “no” at Tabby’s Place.
Exhibit A: Clifford. If you beat the butterscotch out of every cat in your room, you do not get a scolding. You get promoted to your own private suite with a skylight the size of South Dakota.
Exhibit B: Deku. If you require being held upside-down like a newborn sea otter eleven hours a day, you do not get disappointed. You get held upside-down like a newborn sea otter eleven hours a day.
Our family recipe is “Cats Know Best, Cats Come First.”
Although we couldn’t put Cupcake back outdoors, we could grant her grace and space. We nestled her in our Community Room, full of cats as mild as graham crackers.
Soaring windows would spangle her with the same sunlight she’d loved all her life. Beds shaped like coconut Sno-balls, and cardboard houses shaped like ice cream trucks, offered places to hide or dream.
If she wanted friendship, feline or otherwise, it would rise to meet her like daily bread. And if not, love would still fill her senses, like an aroma from an open bakery that gives without asking anything in return.
Quietly, Cupcake developed a taste for Tabby’s Place.
Meandering the Community Room, her wobbly little body found new footing. Cupcake relearned how to jump and to navigate. She found our offerings of softness and snacks. She found herself … happy.
In a storybook, love looks like kisses and truffles. In real life, love is patient and sticky. In the Community Room, love looks like staff on their hands and knees at the door of your hidey hole, holding you as gently as possible while they administer life-saving medication.
At Tabby’s Place, love looks like the cat, the one and only cat, the individual cat: not Cupcake or Cupcake or Cupcake, but Cupcake, fourth of her name but first of her kind.
It was Jae who first discovered that Cupcake savored occasional back-skritches. I am not sure which of them was more surprised. There was a secret layer of trust hidden between Cupcake’s worry and wariness. Our little loner had worked up a craving for (limited) company.
For weeks, Cupcake astounded us all. The victory lap of her long and rugged life was as soft as buttercream. Though we could not wrap her in our arms, she quietly confirmed that we were her friends.
There is a sweet communion in simply being near one another, peaceful and breathing. Like wordless companions reading side-by-side in soft armchairs, Cupcake and her humans (and we all became her humans) shared a tender togetherness.
But friendship proves its strength in the hardest hour.
As Cupcake’s weight began to plummet, our staff summoned a smorgasbord. No delicacy was off limits, no treat too rich. Cupcake’s angels exulted each time she finished a little three-ounce can … or half a can … or a single squeeze-treat.
But her appetite was ebbing, and she soon developed pain in her toes as cancer spread its tendrils. With tears in their eyes, our team agreed. Love meant mercy, and mercy meant goodbye.
Given Cupcake’s shyness, our staff made the Community Room as serene as possible for her final journey. Lowering the lights, drawing the curtains, and cocooning Cupcake in calm, we wept our goodbyes for the girl we will never forget.
When we lose a cat, we often say that their suite is a little quieter. But in the case of Cupcake, the Community Room is somehow less quiet. Our little lady brought a sweet, sacred silence that enriched us all. Her greatest gift was finding peace in our presence.
She awaits us now, in the place of unbroken sweetness.
Thank you for being ours, gentle Cupcake. Until we meet again.