If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
But if it walks like a granny in new Reeboks and talks continually, it’s definitely Ducky.
Ducky’s favorite topic is all the topics, simultaneously.
Ducky talks about the weather, and the menu, and the silvery moon.
Ducky talks about the haughty sparrows doing clog dances on the Community Room bird feeders.
Ducky talks about metaphysical poetry, and the timeless elegance of squeeze cheese, and the career trajectories of all five Spice Girls.
Ducky talks, because life is remarkable. Ducky will pause if things get less astonishing. In other words, do not expect to get a word in edgewise anytime soon.
It is not as though our words could compete with Ducky’s dialogue, anyway. Shouldn’t that be monologue? Ah, but that’s where we differ from Ducky.
Most of us muddle along, trying to get our ducks in a row. Ducky sends them off quacking in all directions, and they come back reporting miracles.
We save our breath for the big stuff, but Ducky is in constant conversation with life. The world can’t help but quack back in little happies, a call-and-response between the blessed and the blessing.
The more Ducky talks, the more there is to quack about.
This conversation started long before we met Ducky. Many springtimes ago, she was a fuzzy chick in Long Island. A wonderful woman took Ducky under her wings, and Ducky has been warbling her warmth and wit ever since.
Whether she is talking about Gulliver‘s admirable goatee, the way pear blossoms fall like paratrooper ballerinas, or her theory that cheese confirms the presence of angels, Ducky is talking about love.
This is not because life has rolled like water off Ducky’s back. In her golden years, she lost her person. There is a cloud in her lemonade eyes, and grief beneath her gabbing.
And though she may look spry in her cinnamon seersucker stripes, it has been a long time since she was a duckling.
There is that old injury in her front leg, and creaky kidneys that need extra care. She is as jaunty as a mall-walker, quacking laps around your legs, but Ducky has unspoken aches and pains. At times, she will lick her own elbow with the frenzy of a duck splashing in a bathtub.
But this is not Ducky’s swan song.
Our little bird of paradise has only just begun.
At Tabby’s Place, old cats are the talk of the town. The dusty, crusty world may call them ugly ducklings, or, worse, “unadoptable.” But we are the lily pond where age is the deep end of beauty.
We can’t stop yapping about the splendor of seniors. We would paddle the Pacific to make them feel loved. And, thanks to you, we have the expertise and infatuation to soothe their pains and fly them into a future that is sweeter than the past.
Still, we are the ones in Ducky’s debt.
Love taught Ducky to speak. Now we are the dizzy, fuzzy creatures under her wing. She will tell us all the places joy hides in plain sight. (Correction: she will yell us this information.)
Our vocabulary is small, but she is here to help. She will not stop talking until we get quacking on our own poetry. She will then continue talking.
And she is currently talking in her forever home. 
At eighteen, adopted and adored, she proves that it is never too late to find the love you deserve.
And now it is your turn to talk back to seniors like Ducky.
Every elderly cat at Tabby’s Place will directly benefit from your donation to our Remember the Seniors Fund Drive.
Your gift will be doubled, and your love will speak volumes.
Please remember our grateful girl and her gift of gab. Let your heart speak. Or quack, as the case may be.
And if that’s not motivation enough, here are photos of Ducky delighting in her new home. Look what you make possible!
