The year is 2025, and humans have learned how to make many things.
We have invented an entity called “cheese product.”
We have taught our smart speakers to tell us the dewpoint, the average weight of a wombat, and Willie Nelson’s birthday.
We can even manufacture diamonds in a laboratory and convince each other they came from the heart of the Earth.
Diamonds … but not Ruby.
If Ruby appears exasperated, she has her reasons. Ruby did not sign up for a world of Velveeta and vinyl.
If Ruby had a smart speaker, she would not ask it to play “Margaritaville,” or tell her the height of Shaquille O’Neal.
She would ask it what happens when everything is not okay. She would ask if it knows any poems about the pancreas. She would ask why human beings are scared most of the time.
And poor, limited Alexa would answer, “I’m not sure about that.”
Ruby is not scared. She is not distracted by shiny things. If I were to write you some greeting-card goop about her downy grey feathers, she would interject that she is no silly goose. She would also bite me.
She is a red-blooded, silver tabby cat, and she is her own person.
She plays the cards she is given, without pretending they are all aces.
She does not believe in hiding anything up her sleeve. Or wearing clothes, for that matter.
Before we met her, Ruby was dealt that wild joker called diabetes. The most “real” cat on Earth survives thanks to synthetic insulin. Ruby is not amused, but Ruby is not in despair.
Ruby is not always what you might call “cooperative” for her injections. But if you provide a red-and-white French fry tray of pate and a side dish of existentialism, Ruby will permit you to save her life.
Just don’t get sappy about it.
It’s not that Ruby isn’t a gem. She is a genuine Ruby, as precious as the heart-shaped necklace your grandmother gave you when you turned thirteen. She wants to be here, or else she wouldn’t be here. Ruby would never attend a party just to keep up appearances, not even if the Board of Directors or Beyonce was there.
Ruby’s only boss is the voice under her ribs that always tells the truth.
And the truth is, Ruby loves it here.
Ruby loves the way one hundred percent of the human species is dorky, but no two dorks are the same.
Ruby loves that Tabby’s Place is Earth’s epicenter for affection, and everyone is earnest and honest and electric and odd.
Ruby loves that people with homework, mortgages, and fears taller than Shaq sit with her while she eats, in some quiet communion of “real” with “real.”
Ruby loves how we try to invent languages that cats translate into love. Ruby is fluent in them all, even if her words are few.
So Ruby chose to stay.
Ruby’s body offered an alternate option. Ketoacidosis is diabetes’s unfunniest joke, and it had the bad taste to heckle Ruby.
In the course of hours, her body began to implode. Ketoacidosis sets in when cells don’t get the glucose they need for energy. The body starts breaking down fat, and acids called ketones gang up in the blood and urine. The body has begun to poison itself. Death is on the march.
But Ruby marches to the beat of her own heart.
“Things were about to get real,” as they say. (Ruby would never say this. Ruby would hate this expression.)
We rushed Ruby to the emergency hospital, where honest angels warned us that Ruby’s condition was grave. Diabetic ketoacidosis comes on like a train, and the best treatment may not be enough. Tabby’s Place staff and volunteers tossed and turned all night, raggedly refreshing our notifications.
Ruby was in real danger.
But Ruby was in real love.
Somewhere in those dark hours, from a thicket of tubes and machines, Ruby chose life.
How else do we explain a recovery that felt like resurrection, with a dehydrated cat bubbling up like a spring?
What else can account for Ruby’s resilience, with our tough gem keeping her link on the charm bracelet?
You cannot command the hour when life floods back into a dying body. You cannot manufacture the moment a cat comes home from the ICU to Tabby’s Place like a conquering queen.
But you did make this possible, if you have donated in the past year, and I cannot thank you enough.
And now, we get to “get real” with Ruby every day, whether she rolls her eyes or lolls in our laps.
We can count on her to always tell the truth.
She can count on us to love the real Ruby. No matter what.