From space, the Earth looks like a helpless blue dot, dangling in the dark.
To the naked eye, Blue looks like one shelter cat, interchangeable with any other.
But if you come close, you will see life itself.
There are millions of cats in thousands of shelters.
From afar, they are felis catus, an undifferentiated planet of need. Their tails tangle up their stories, and names drown in the ocean of the many.
“If you have seen one cat, you have seen them all,” they say.
They are wrong. If you have seen one cat, you have only seen one cat.
No two tuxedos wear the same coat. Every purr strums its own chord. Love looks through the microscope, not the telescope. A cat is a world unto himself.
In a crowded shelter, Blue was a lonely planet. The staff had heard his weary story too many times before, with only the names and faces changed: person loves cat. Person falls ill. By no fault of anyone, cat comes to shelter. Grief ensues, as wide as the sky.
To make matters worse, Blue was tossed by an invisible tide inside.
He tried to keep his eyes on the stars. He believed his world was not over. He still had love to give, unlike any love that anyone had ever given before. Gentle Blue beamed at all who came near.
But behind his hopeful eyes was a hurt no hug could heal.
Blue had a life-threatening liver shunt. Without state-of-the-art surgery and costly, long-term care, the light would go out from his eyes.
For a shelter cat, it is the kind of diagnosis that tears down the sky.
Yet Blue was not “a shelter cat.”
Blue was Blue, handcrafted for love.
And when you are a cat staring down a black hole, Tabby’s Place is your life-supporting planet.
Earth has a protective atmosphere and a strong magnetic field, and Tabby’s Place has stubborn love.
We understand that most shelters can’t afford heroic medical care for one cat. We are all in this mission together, and we need shelters who take in the multitudes.
But we are called to a mathematics of mercy, where a single cat is the size of the whole world.
The compassionate team at Blue’s shelter reached out on his behalf. “Yes” was as simple as counting to one.
Simple … but not easy.
To save a cat like Blue, we must call upon all the colors of compassion. The gentle, trusting Blue would need the fierce magenta of donors who see their own tuxedo cats in his eyes and will not let him fade away.
He would need the fearless gold of sponsors who trade their pleasures to afford a gift for a cat they have never met.
He would need the green gaze of supporters who see a fellow traveler, and join Blue on his journey.
He would need all of us, arm in arm. He would need the Linda Fund.
The Linda Fund is our annual odyssey. Together, we raise funds for the cats who crash to Earth in crisis.
They land at Tabby’s Place with liver shunts, or catastrophic injuries from a car, or the hoarse meow of a fading orphan.
The Linda Fund is the belief that their lives are worth saving. The Linda Fund what love looks like up close.
And when you get this close, Blue is no dot of a cat, generic as a cog.
Blue is the boy with wry eyebrows, and whiskers that arc like shooting stars.
He is the softhearted clown who would never make fun of anyone but himself. His perfect tuxedo toes knead the air, as though he is tapping Morse code for “I love you.”
He comforts his comforters and makes a donut collar look divine.
He deserves everything we have to give. He deserves to live.
By the time Blue’s surgery came, our lives were entwined with his. This is the danger of coming close enough to see the one. Love one small cat, and your heart will never return to its original size. You have never been so truly alive.
But you have never had so much to lose.
Our vet team warned us that the procedure would be delicate, and there were no guarantees. If Blue came through, he might still face a difficult recovery, fraught with setbacks.
We would have to be brave on his behalf, like Ground Control for a tuxedo spaceman.
But when the countdown is all about the one, miracles outnumber meteors.
Blue’s surgery was not only a success. It was utterly uneventful. His side effects were zero. His recovery was complete. The Linda Fund outshone the sun.
The future is life itself.
And your gift today will save a future cat.
She is a world unto herself. She is the only one of her kind.
She is going to need us in a day when there is no time to fundraise, only to lean on love.
Please imagine her face and count up to one.
Tell her Blue sent you.