I had no reason to be angry with Garth Brooks.

We have no reason to be angry with adopters who can’t keep their cats.

But reason drops the ball, and love is not a game.

If Tabby’s Place were the Olympic Games, you might say adoptions are gold medals. Cats compete for adopters’ affections. Winners ascend the podium to bask in warm arms. (The metaphor collapses at this point. The victory lap involves being crammed into a carrier, and your anthem is whatever your adopter plays on the radio on the ride home, even if it is “Mr. Boombastic.”)

If Tabby’s Place were the Olympic Games, the first night in a forever home might be the Opening Ceremonies. A decathlon of toys festoons the room. A golden haze enhaloes everything you do. The judges high-five each other every time you slam-dunk your kibble or practice pugilism with jingle balls. It is an event of international import when you urinate between the goalposts.

It is assumed that, you, having won, are exempt from Closing Ceremonies. You will never be confused, bewildered, or booted out of bounds or out of control again.

But Tabby’s Place is not the Olympic Games, and no one is exempt from Closing Ceremonies.

Ella is not exempt, despite having been adopted over a decade ago. Today’s gold medalists were toddlers when the three-legged torbie vaulted out our doors. The world had not yet Tikked or Tokked. Prescott (speaking of topics of international import) was nothing but a dream.

Ella was supposed to have emigrated from the land of sorrows. She had taken enough tumbles for twenty lifetimes. A car had disassembled her. Stubborn love and stellar surgeons had trained all their lives for this moment. Ella recovered, but she trembled. You do not claim your birthright as “beloved” in an instant, any more than you master the uneven bars in an hour.

She cowered in the Community Room, bobbing and weaving around love’s intrusions. She parried those who would pet her. Her eyes sparkled like a fencer’s foils, fear sharpened to a point.

But after a point, she heard a startling music.

It was her own purr.

It was her own anthem.

Tabby’s Place is not the Olympic Games, so there are infinite ways to win.

Like a torbie cat, our medals come in many colors. Ella won long before she was adopted. Ella won every time she received the mercy she couldn’t lose. Ella won as she felt her worth, certain as the sun tickling the heart-shaped orange splotch on her forehead. Ella won, but we won bigger.

And then, Ella was adopted. We wept for ourselves and cheered for our champion.

Eleven years and five Olympics went by.

Then, in the middle of the Games that should not end, Ella crashed into the Closing Ceremonies.

There are always reasons for returns, though we never ask. Chapters only slam shut when the book is heavy. There is not a soul among us who has not felt the weight of life. This is a moment for mercy, not judgement.

This is a moment for looking ahead, not behind.

In the midst of these Olympic Games, Ella is not the only decorated athlete coming out of retirement. Trent, Lita, and Sebastian have all been returned, too. If Tabby’s Place were the Olympic Games, we would tell these as sad stories, victories lost.

But Tabby’s Place is not the Olympic Games. The return to the amphitheater of amateurs is filled with hope. It is also filled with role models, living legends like Marcia and Angelo. They prove there is life after return. They have nothing to prove. These are the Reopening Ceremonies.

Which brings me back to Garth Brooks.

Although my parents and I had the collective athleticism of a dumpling, we were infatuated with the Olympics. We cheered for America and Azerbaijan. We cried over everyone who overcame anything, be it genocide or gout. We became armchair experts in basketball and badminton.

We did not want them to end.

One particularly poignant Olympics, NBC ceaselessly advertised the Grammys that would follow the games. I don’t know that I will ever overcome the traumatic image of Garth Brooks’s face superimposed on the water of an empty Olympic pool. I did not know this man, but he made me angry. He and his friends in low places were going to take away my Olympics.

Then my Dad convinced me to watch the Grammys, and Garth Brooks sang about “The Dance,” and we cried as though it were the table tennis semifinals all over again.

All of which is to say, if you are made of love and perhaps several dollops of silliness, you do not need to worry about the Closing Ceremonies.

Ella may never be adopted again.

You may be a smidge too old for the four-hundred meter.

But there is no telling where “closing” ends and “reopening” begins.

There is every reason to expect that the best is yet to come, and then to buy it an express ticket.

Tabby’s Place is open, and the only closure on this campus is enfolded arms.

Welcome back, Ella. Love is so much better than any game.

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