At Tabby’s Place, we believe “beautiful” has a billion faces.
“Stunning” is an accordion file with infinite pockets.
But the cat whose name means “handsome” has a face like no other.
If he stood on two feet, Bello would use his hands to play the accordion. He would stand under your window at three in the morning and sing songs comparing you to the moon. He would save you the biggest piece of parmigiana. He would tie a strand of spaghetti around your finger and ask you to remember him.
He would look you in the eyes and get tearful, because you’re just so beautiful.
Matter of fact, you’re so beautiful, Bello cannot stare directly at you. This is the accurate explanation for Bello’s head-tilt. Our vet team might assign blame to some vestibular mischief, like an old infection or polyp. But beyond biology, you are to blame.
You, and existence itself.
If you have ever been wrung by joy, you understand Bello’s condition. One moment, you are cruising at altitude through the usual fog. You fold the laundry, you drop things off and pick them up, and you move in the general direction of evening without even remembering the morning.
But all at once, for just a moment, the mask slips. Life smiles. A cat may conquer your lap and your fears simultaneously. The chime of one “meow” may remind you that there is still music.
It is all so wonderful, you can’t help but fall on your knees, or at least tilt your head.
Then the phone rings, the cat jumps out of your lap, and the parmigiana burns, and you forget.
But Bello, born with a surplus of beautiful, does not forget. So, Bello’s head tilts all the time.
Bello’s back story might seem beige at best. There were no murals or mozzarellas. Life was hardscrabble. Bello’s only paintbrushes were the tails of several dozen friends in a sickly cat colony. There is no time to make art when survival is a science.
Frankly, I am making it all sound a bit too poetic.
Let us put on our overalls to face the prose. Bello and his kin were ravaged with flea dermatitis. Upper respiratory infections roared from every pore. Bello’s friends were so fragile, we named them for strong elements: Zinc, Boron, Cobalt. And then there was Tungsten, the toughest element of all: a weeks-old kitten found alone in the attic. 
He succumbed to flea bite anemia, despite our vet team’s supernatural efforts.
There was nothing beautiful about the cats’ old life.
But in every species, there are soft hearts and hard heads. Bello’s tilt was tenacious. He would bend the light until he saw the beauty. There were cats here, lots of cats, and cats are for loving. There were fingers soft as ferns stroking his spine.
And then, there was a clatter of carriers.
Bello’s feet flew, aloft in an airbus with little round holes in the sides.
Did you know that “round” is a beautiful shape? Did you know that human beings save cats, volunteer their thumbs to open sardine cans, and kiss your forehead before you even have a name?
Did you know that human beings are beautiful?
Did you know that the rhythm of a rescuer’s arm, swinging a carrier, is more glamorous than a yacht upon the Riviera? Did you know that Lord Byron meant to write a sonnet about the delicate pleasure of riding in a cat carrier?
Bello knows. Bello tells.
Alliteration is asking me to tell you that “Bello bellows.” But the truth is that Bello croons.
Bello is nearly as loud as he is lovely. He cannot leave all the beauty unspoken. He can hold a note longer than Roy Orbison. His mew is so molto, all the tenors bow in silence.
He may be the precise color of “ordinary,” brown as toast and striped as soil. He may have come from chaos. He may have every right to withhold his serenade until Tabby’s Place presents an airtight case for trusting us.
But Bello has glimpsed a world we all want to believe exists. Bello is too beautiful to keep it to himself.
Bello is ringing happiness from every cracked bell.
Tell him that he looks at life through rose-colored glasses, and the rumpled colony cat will admit it. There is no beauty without truth. One must be nearsighted to insist that kindness signs every canvas.
But Bello’s astigmatism is intentional.
Bello tilts toward the more beautiful truth.
If life is not beautiful, it only means the song is not over.
Bello does not intend to let us forget.