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Night questions

Night questions

I’m a lifelong insomniac, and there are certain questions I ask at night.

What would it look like if we all really believed we were beloved?

Is it possible to perform (enact? commit?) a single shenanigan?

Why haven’t Pancake and/or Sammy been adopted yet?

As it happens, I now have one fewer question for the small hours.

Pancake has made her crepe escape.

Sammy has been squired out of Tabby’s Place for good. (That other adoption? Just a dress rehearsal.)

This is good and right and overdue by any accounting. Every cat is Extremely Stellar, but some cats are so stellar, their “unadopted” status is an insult to the entire realm. And so, Sammy and Pancake’s triumph is a victory for us all. We can once again sheathe our righteous indignation.

And yet.

Seeing two of our longtime lovables finally get their due raises as many questions as it answers.

Why does love sometimes take longer than makes any sense?

Why do some wait across the eons, while others have full dance cards before they’re out of diapers? (This is a particularly poor metaphor at Tabby’s Place. Our kittens don’t actually wear diapers, and our diapered denizens aren’t actually babies. I should hang my head in a heap of Huggies for that one.)

Was there a reason Pancake’s sister Stella — equally shy, equally exquisite, equally handcrafted of dreams and delights — was adopted ages before P-Cake herself? Stella was more nervous than a poet in a pickup game of touch football (I have been that poet and I know). Pancake, on the other hand, quickly flattened her fears and sweetened to the syrup of a life lived among human beans.

Pancake and Stella still correspond as co-treasurers of the Cats Against Alliteration Association…which has a few issues to work out before getting their 501(c)3

But Stella went first, and famously, into a family that still gushes their gratitude in our direction. Pancake’s stay stretched on, the batter becoming thinner and more translucent by the day, even as P-Cake’s strength and grace grew more solid. She worked wizardry with wand toys, bringing us greater joy than we knew a cake could carry. Her friendship was heartier than any lumberjack breakfast, fortifying us for days that all ran together in one pandemic puddle of mystery.

She was here for us.

And then her calling called her elsewhere.

In case you thought I was exaggerating about Sammy’s man-harem…

The same could be speculated about Sammy. (Here I must pause to apologize. Thirteen months of a global pandemic have had many effects, not least of all over-cranking the alliteration engine in my brain. I’m working with my doctor, but the damage may be permanent. Perfectly putrid, perhaps.)

Sammy! She who arrived with a tiny heart-shaped face made for any and every Cute Cat Calendar.

Sammy! She whose Special Need — a mere hole in the heart — tugged our heartstrings without tugging potential adopters’ purse strings. She needed no medication, just adulation.

Sammy! She whose legendary early shyness was slammed by friendship — first feline, always feline, but finally human, too. A Sammy surrounded by a man-harem of tuxedo cats, or any cats, of any color, was a Sammy in full possession of her powers and her courage and her ability to love and be loved, even by the likes of us.

Sammy! Utterly adoptable. Stubbornly not adopted. Ultimately adopted, then unadopted, and finally…adopted. With Pancake. At precisely the right time.

At least, my feeble brain and child’s heart can only trust it was all at the right time. And I surely do.

So if you’re waiting and wondering today or — more likely — tonight, dream in peace, kittens. Our questions may never be fully answered, not this side of the veil. But the right stories will come true, sooner or later.

Now if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go enact a shenanigan or two.

2 thoughts on “Night questions

  1. Smiling here in Florida – adoptions are great, all adoptions, but especially grown up cats that lingered (Of course, to linger at Tabby’s Place is no hardship) past kitteny cuteness. It is fitting that Pancake and Sammy have been adopted – they will now spread their happiness out into the world. Best of luck and love forever to Pancake and Sammy and their new families.

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