Never underestimate a hospice cat.

He can blur the lines of “caregiver” and “patient.”

He can wear his crumpled ears like a crown of marigolds.

He can soften hard days like the morning dew.

Dewie knows a thing or two about hard days.

If you are a cat with cauliflower ears the color of cayenne, you are cute and will be adopted.

If you are a cat infected with feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline leukemia virus (FeLV), you are no less cute, but far less likely to be adopted.

If you are a cat whose double diagnosis invited a third friend for dinner without asking permission, you may be out of answers.

If you have FIV, FeLV, and diabetes, you may be called a “hospice cat.”

Dewie did not have answers, but he was not worried.

Dewie did not have teeth, not even one wee nubbin, but he kept smiling.

Dewie wanted to start a band called The Wee Nubbins, and that could still happen.

Dewie had nowhere to go, but the best doors tend to appear where there were once walls.

There is an unseen network of plainclothes angels and unregistered saints out there, booby-trapping the world with beginnings. This is my only explanation for the way life keeps running laps around death.

Cats catapult out of hopeless situations, and “hospice cats” heal the humans who supposedly saved them.

It was through this network of light-bearers that Tabby’s Place learned of Dewie. We bowed before his majesty before we even saw his marigold crown.

This was no ordinary cat. This was a long-tailed legend with the same medical stew as Trifecta.

Anyone with anything in common with Trifecta has already won at life. If you ask any human on the premises, “who is the kindest cat at Tabby’s Place?”, you are likely to hear one answer: Trifecta.

Trifecta travels to nursing homes, cancer support groups, and the laps of people who have been just barely keeping it together all day.

Trifecta lives with FIV, FeLV, and diabetes.

Trifecta lives more than most living creatures since time began.

Dewie was dealt the same diagnostic hand. Dewie, like Trifecta, could be called a “hospice cat.”

But there is some confusion in the record. Perhaps some cauliflowered ear did not catch all the details. One paragraph suggested Dewie was a hospice cat because he was not expected to live very long. Another paragraph said Dewie was a hospice cat because he used to comfort a dying man, laying warm and wonderful in his lap.

Which was true?

They were both true.

Indeed, we were about to welcome greatness.

Toothless and gentle, the cat in need of care was a king of compassion. Crowned in light, Dewie was not afraid to love a departing friend.

People with a clean bill of health may leave the room when things get heavy, or “healing” doesn’t come the way we wanted.

The cat with three diagnoses is braver than most of us. The cat who has traveled hard ground is here to soften our deserts with dew.

We are not about to call Dewie a “hospice cat” at Tabby’s Place. By our math, he has at least six lives left. Given proper care, Dewie may thrive for years.

But Dewie does not count years, only mornings. Every day we are together is the best day. Every teardrop Dewie can catch is a seed of healing, even when “healing” has a face we must learn to love.

We all have some diagnoses we’ll drag around until the morning that does not end. But as long as we have hospice cats, and as long as we try to be more like hospice cats, no one has to carry anything alone.

Never underestimate a caregiver with crumpled ears.

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