“Poor Trent.”
The text message could have meant any number of things.
Trent might just be on the receiving end of Hips‘ hooliganism. Trent might be trapped under Bello as an unwitting pillow. Trent might be receiving cat food, when he specifically requested lobster Florentine.
Or Trent might be …
“Poor Trent.”
The Tabby’s Place staff communicates constantly. We are incurably fond of each other and share everything from kitten name ideas to articles about the emotional lives of wombats to ghastly puns (sometimes all at once).
But there is one text-message channel we do not use lightly. The emergency chat is not the place to report that you are pretty sure you just saw Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at the ice cream parlor, or that Bob‘s sneeze sounds like an oboe.
The emergency chat is not where you text “Poor Trent,” if Trent is just pining for Prescott or dissatisfied with dinner.
But “Poor Trent” is what it said.
I heard myself take a sharp breath, fast and fearful.
If you love someone, you know you love them. But if you love someone, you are constantly surprised by how much you love them. Nothing can remind you of that muchness quite like your own heart, boom like a kick drum.
“Poor Trent.”
I fumbled with my phone, frantic for context. But the screen turned all soupy, because all I could see was Trent.
Trent, hopping like a kangaroo, with that special-edition bent front leg that only makes him more magical.
Trent, gentle with toddlers, but nobody’s fool. Well, 99% of nobody.
Trent, Prescott’s love-struck fool 100% of the time.
Trent, pole vaulting to the highest turret of every cat tree, anti-gravitational without effort.
Trent, all silver silk and feathers, dreamlike as a Jim Henson creature by day and by night.
Trent, standing as proud as Napoleon, leg folded in as though for his official portrait.
Trent, tenderhearted and astute, suddenly steadfast by your side if your day went sideways.
Trent, having some weird bladder issues just a few hours before the text message, but nothing scary, certainly not …
“Poor Trent.”
Another set of words flashed behind my eyes: Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Why had I not wrapped Trent in my arms every time I saw him? How many times was I “so busy,” I stuffed down the surge of affection when he smiled into my eyes?
What action items were so important that I did not stop to hop with the kindest kangaroo?
I scrolled through my own preemptive tears.
“Trent is urinary blocked, but he’s OK. Denise is going to unblock him.”
And moments later, a piece of poetry so exquisite, so divine, Kahlil Gibran would weep: “Trent urinated on his own!”
I wanted to embroider those words on a tapestry the full length of Tabby’s Place. Or perhaps I could hire a blimp to fly a banner back and forth across New Jersey: TRENT URINATED ON HIS OWN!
Instead, I cried.
Trent would spend the next few days bunking grumpily at our in-house hospital, for monitoring, fluid support, and assorted inconveniences that made him feel like Poor Trent indeed. It is possible he may need surgery at some point, of a nature we shall not describe to Prescott. But today is not that day.
Trent is back to “normal,” although that is a silly word unworthy of Trent.
Trent is not going anywhere.
And the next time I see him, and the next, and the next, and the next, I will stop wherever I am going to thank him for being.
This is the day of gladness, not the hour of separation.
We are rich in Trent, tycoons of love.