If this should all end tomorrow, Mr. Mustache could be proud for the rest of his life.
Mr. Mustache has done good work.
Mr. Mustache has changed the entire world.
This may sound preposterous. But in a world of impostors, Tabby’s Place cats and Tabby’s Place people lean preposterous.
This is why hope leans on us. This is the way of the angels.
This is the way of a hirsute hero smiling under handlebars.
Mr. Mustache is smiling for many reasons today, beginning with a scientific breakthrough. Generations of schoolchildren will someday learn of the Mustache Quotient: the universe is expanding at the exact rate at which cats are given belly rubs.
In layman’s terms: get to it.
Mr. Mustache, in the interest of science, undulates like a winning team’s pennant. His tummy jiggles like a bowl of Spaghetti-O’s, rippling the ramp in Suite FIV until you stop what you’re doing and start the one thing you should be doing.
If no one should rub his belly, I believe we would have proof that a cat can wiggle forever.
Fortunately, conditions for that experiment will never be met. Surely you’re familiar with the Mustache Theorem: persons equipped with hearts are categorically incapable of rejecting Mr. Mustache.
When he isn’t pushing scientific frontiers, Mr. Mustache is pushing his face against yours. Not only is our paprika powerhouse a man of style and a physicist of renown, he is also a Rhodes Scholar, a Roast Beef Scholar, and a romantic poet.
We have never heard him utter a word, but Mr. Mustache is living literature. From the back of his eyes, where love and mystery share a gingerbread cottage, Mr. Mustache will run out to meet your gaze. He stares sonnets straight through you, radiating reassurance. All is well, and you — yes, you — put the twirl in his mustache.
You — yes, you — get to share this cayenne moment of history with our hunky hero.
You — yes, you, and Mr. Mustache too — get to live in a world of turkeys and puffins and Paul Rudd and cats.
If there’s one subject even Mr. Mustache can’t master, it’s cats. He is bewildered and astonished by the sheer splendor of cats. He can scarcely believe he gets to rub shoulders and foreheads with such wondrous creatures every day. Every day!
Mr. Mustache only wishes there were more cats to love, which is why he has a vested interest in expanding the universe.
In the meantime, he’s content to expand the ease of others. The self-appointed Grandpop of Suite FIV, Mr. Mustache is a commanding force of comfort, the hub of peace for all who worry. That’s good news for neurotic niblets like you and me, but even better for his fellow felines.
Where other renowned individuals might lord it over their lessers, Mr. Mustache exults in equality, concerned only to cuddle everyone he has ever met, repeatedly. He knows no rivals, and submits petitions against competition.
Life is for the loving, and everything living is lovable.
These are lessons earth can’t teach, so we suspect Mr. Mustache has received direct instruction from angelic hosts. But he also comes from a family tree rooted in tender soil.
Mr. Mustache is kin of Agnes, Toulouse, and Betty.
Fetched from the same farm as our golden girls, Mr. Mustache has known both hunger and the honey-gold mystery of love. Like his sisters (aunties? daughters? half-cousins?), Mr. Mustache came brimming with soul and sweetness.
In his many years upon the earth, Mr. Mustache has come upon the great mystery. There is a purpose for every living thing — old cats with fabulous facial hair and young people with frazzling doubts, grandpops and giddy gumdrops and writers wobbling in their high-tops.
Whatever we’ve seen, whatever we can’t see over the horizon, we can comfort each other.
It’s a discovery that’s ever new.
It’s something Mr. Mustache can be proud of for all his days.
He has changed Tabby’s Place for the sweeter, leaving all his ragged grandchildren stronger. And if tomorrow he leaves to get adopted or to become the CEO of Arby’s, he leaves a legacy.
And a calling.
Twirl your ‘staches with panache, little gingersnaps.
Final three photos courtesy of extraordinary, astronomically excellent, utterly adored volunteer Allison. Mr. M and I are among her many superfans.
Mr. Mustache and Tabby’s Place family: May angels protect you, may sadness forget you, may joy surround you with love all around you. Mr. Mustache knows!