Losing your person may feel like the meanest misfortune.
But if there’s a four-leaf clover in your carrier, something greater than luck carried you here.
Frank and Sandy‘s whiskers quivered with questions.
Where was the face they knew best, the morning light dressed in a human smile? It had been hours since they saw their reflections in those eyes. Without that mirror, they hardly recognized themselves.
What was this orange-and-blue building? They had been in carriers before. Car rides usually led to the vet’s office. This was not that dreadful destination, but neither was it home.
And if they were in heaven, how did they get here, and why were strangers brushing them with tiny toothbrushes?
Who were these strangers, anyway? As strangers go, they were … well, there has to be a stronger word than “strange.” They had never seen Sandy and Frank before, but they were all shining like the sun in a child’s drawing.
Didn’t anyone ever teach them how to be a stranger? Strangers are not supposed to love other strangers so fast, with no questions asked.
But here they were, these soft-voiced, cotton candy-eyed people. They were as gooey as grandparents, even though some of them were younger than the hot dogs at the gas station. They were already cooing nicknames, as though Frank and Sandy weren’t strangers at all, only family who showed up just in time for breakfast.
“Tabby’s Place cat.” Sandy heard the words first. The older cat by nine years, senior Sandy was more serious than her brother. By the time you’re eleven, you’ve waded through some deep thoughts about family, and fear, and who’s carrying your carrier. “Tabby’s Place cat.” What could it mean?
Frank’s young eyes explored the room, as soft fingers skritched his chin. These curious strangers were not his missing person, but there was something familiar about them.
Frank was only two years old, but he already had a philosophy: everyone has more family out there than they know. And if you are lucky, they will find you when you are quivering with questions and you can’t calm yourself down.
They might find you at the gas station, or they might find you at the trampoline park, or they might even find you in an orange-and-blue building where everyone is acting as though you are the gold at the end of the rainbow, even though you are only a plain brown tabby who lost someone wonderful.
And if someone skritches your chin in that sweet spot, you have your answer.
They are your secret family.
Frank was already starting to give his heart, or to receive it again, or maybe both … he’d have to remember that question for later.
For now, people were shnoogling him in blankets like a downy gosling, and maybe later they could all watch cartoons. Maybe he could even ask them his question about vegan frankfurters, and what they are made of, and why they smell like flatulence, and why flatulence is always funny.
After all, Frank was only two years old.
At eleven, Sandy knew that some questions have no answers. Grit comes with time. Yet even the black-and-white senior had green tendrils of hope. The longer these moony strangers looked her in the eyes, the more they looked like home. She felt herself purr, that tender thunder that tells the truth before you can admit it.
She felt fortunate … no, that’s not quite the word.
Humans slosh through questions, though the far side of the river is not answers, but love. We will never know Frank and Sandy’s full story, or the face that saved them but had to send them onward.
We will only know their first family by the promise they packed up with the cats.
As Frank and Sandy settled in as Tabby’s Place cats, we found four-leaf clovers in their carriers.
What’s a stronger word than “lucky?”
Update: How about “adopted?” Today, Frank is living the full loveliness of that word. Sandy, we know you’re next.