Do you believe a cat can come into your life by “coincidence”?
Or do you think it’s more likely Sasquatch will show up for Spaghetti-O’s?
More on both of those individuals (Sasquatch and Spaghetti-O) shortly.
But first, a note of caution. Spend enough time with cats, and you’ll start to see serendipity. Once you do, it will invite all its friends over, and you’ll find those things everywhere.
They are the sequins bedazzling your day. They are the stripes and spots stringing your hours together like pearls.
They are the golden kernels on every common cob.
They are also the inconvenience that asks everything when you are down to nothing. The tank is on empty. There is no final drop in the juice box. You need sleep, a long hug, and several Golden Oreos before you can even think about giving again.
This is the moment three nodules of neon arrive. They are safety orange, fiery as emergency flares. This is the only thing bright about them. The marmalade kittens are all pith, no zest. They are quickly forgetting what their mother looked like.
Now their mother looks like the vet tech on the burnt end of a twelve-hour day.
She looks like the donor whose head said there was nothing to spare, but whose hand wrote “ten dollars” anyway.
She looks like the second wind that we can’t see coming. We can’t hear its sound. We can only feel it tickle the limp tendrils of our hair and swoop down into our lungs. We can only give thanks when it gives us more than we can muster alone.
And so three hollow-bellied kittens become Chef Boyardee, Spaghetti-O, and Spam.
And so the frail become fat on love, and the exhausted have the electricity turned back on.
And so the weary givers receive power, light, and jumper cables for joy, joy, joy.
It would be a good story if it was a one-time story. We would speak of the late-night kittens like a Sasquatch sighting, or the angel who let you see her out the corner of your eye. But the serendipities are born in larger litters than kittens. They come to need us and to feed us, and they speak so fast, we forget where one ends and the next begins.
They come when we are canyons, eroded by heartbreak. The last thing we want is for someone to need us. We long to lick our wounds. It feels good to wring the empty hands that could not save everyone.
But then our hands are not empty.
They are trembling at the heart rate of a kitten thin as gauze.
He is ginger hair and frizzy cotton, and all the spice has left his eyes.
He is wizened as a prune, and tired as Earth’s oldest man.
He is Corn, and it appears all his kernels have fallen off.
So the hands still wet with tears become a cradle. The throat raw from weeping gurgles a laugh. The hoodied hero who deflects praise sees her face shine in tiny blue eyes. The ashes of the day catch a spark. The cats loved and lost are leaning in. They do not need to wonder what will happen next, because they have lived this story, too.
Corn has been planted in good soil.
Within days, he will be unrecognizable. The shriveled kitten will pop with mischief, buttery as bravado.
It was a “coincidence” that he came when all the joy had gone. It was a “coincidence” that he rolled into the empty canyon and found the great river. It was a “coincidence” that the first words to greet him were, “I needed you!”
It is no coincidence when love exclaims your name without asking.
There are uninvited arrivals who bring us home.
There are tiny sanctuaries disguised as the desperate and frail.
What do you believe?