There is nothing small about a tabby cat who knows how to seize the day.
There is, however, something distinctly “Li’l” about him.
The name is Li’l Papa, but you can call him Pop Pop, Papi, or Popcorn if you like. Just don’t call him late to dinner if you’re making Pappardelle Bolognese.
Li’l Papa can’t resist a good dad joke.
But that’s just because he can’t resist anything related to fun, frippery, or the merriment generally referred to as “being alive.”
And this is why the name is not Little Papa.
Although he is a tabby of normal size, as everyday as a grey golf shirt, Li’l Papa is enormous with life.
He will hang on your arm like Papa Hemingway’s favorite hammock while you medicate him.
He will hang on your every word as though you are writing the Great American Novel into his ear, even if you are just babbling lovestruck gibberish, like, “Li’l Papa is the top of the pops who makes me stop, drop, and plop! He’s the one-stop shop for love and doo-wop! Oh Li’l Papa, will you take me to the hop?”
(Which, come to think of it, might be the Great American Novel after all. Also, yes: he will take you to the hop. He will even give you the better half of his pork chop. OK, I promise I will stop.)
Li’l Papa is thrilled to be here.
Li’l Papa glistens with existence the way your papa glistens with barbecue sauce while he flips your tofu burger and asks if you’re sure you’re getting enough protein these days. Like the cousins who always get lost on the Turnpike, Li’l Papa almost didn’t make it to the party.
As a stray in south Jersey, Li’l Papa learned to survive, but that leaves little time for living. Every day is spent chasing the mirage of a moveable feast. Every night falls heavy on a hungry stray.
The sun also rises, it’s true, but that’s precious li’l comfort when you roam alone.
Actually, it would have been better if Li’l Papa was alone.
Alas, Jersey’s gentlest stray had a small companion.
There is nothing little about Li’l Papa’s courage, and there is nothing cute about a cuterebra. A cuterebra is the tornado warning on Father’s Day. A cuterebra is the “heartwarming family movie” where the dog dies in the last five minutes. A cuterebra is anchovies in your apple pie.
A cuterebra is a botfly larva, a gooey dimwit blob that wreaks death and destruction despite being the size of a Li’l Smokie.
Can you tell we have no compassion for cuterebras at Tabby’s Place?
Li’l Papa, on the other hand, is so forgiving, so fatherly, and so fully alive, he has empathy for all beings.
He is so gentle, he would probably tell us that a botfly larva is somebody’s baby. It is another traveler on the highway of life. It was born in New Jersey, just like you and me and Bruce Springsteen and Queen Latifah and the Jonas Brothers and pork roll. It was …
… Li’l Papa crashed to the ground. For what makes a cuterebra un-cute is not the fact that it looks like Jabba the Hutt’s great-great-grandslug.
What makes a cuterebra unwelcome at the party is that it will burrow through an innocent cat’s skin, all the way into his beautiful, brilliant brain.
That doesn’t just keep a cat from writing his Great American Novel.
It threatens to thrash him out of life itself.
By the time a kind person discovered Li’l Papa, our boy was as flat as expired pop. He would muster all his strength to mush his rescuer, only to be hurled, helpless, by another seizure. His little attacker was relentless. The odds of his survival grew littler by the day.
A public shelter fell in love with Li’l Papa, but they could not save him. His only hope was a costly campout at a specialty hospital. But, intensive care and surgery are out of the budget when you’re just one li’l cat among many.
Li’l Papa needed to be somebody’s top pop.
And he was about to get an invitation to the big party for the littlest and the lost.
All at once, the scared tabby in the hot dog costume leapt off the shelter photo and into our family. Li’l Papa’s novel was still being written after all.
Now a Tabby’s Place cat, he would have his “family vacation” to the emergency vet.
He would have kisses and kisses and kisses from all us kids.
He would have life and life and life, abundant and “impossible.”
He would have to say goodbye to his little hitchhiker. That dastardly parasite is the one for whom the bell tolls. But nobody here is about to cue the Cuterebra Eulogy.
We’re too busy seizing the day, caring for the dadly dude who loves his life.
The Linda Fund saved Li’l Papa’s life not once, but repeatedly … and it may yet do so again.
Li’l Papa’s infection was so severe, it broke all lines of communication between his brain and his ability to urinate normally. Yet, he is not incontinent, so we can’t express his bladder as we would that of a paraplegic cat. Most cats in this delicate state would simply not survive.
But Li’l Papa is not most cats.
And you, devoted Tabby’s Place family, are not most people. You are Li’l Papa’s people.
In consultation with a world-class neurologist, we devised a treatment plan like no other. Li’l Papa now has a cystotomy tube, which our staff gently empties several times a day. It is held in place with a onesie that makes Li’l Papa look like a li’l pumpkin.
We are all held in place by a big, big love.
And because of your big, big love, Li’l Papa has big plans.
He is going to live.
He is going to shnoogle everyone he meets.
And he is going to seize each “impossible” day with every li’l beat of his big, big heart.
Now it’s your turn to seize your moment. Now through 9/30, you can save the next Li’l Papa. Your Linda Fund donation will be doubled. Your love will turn into life.
It may be your biggest decision since you were a li’l kitten yourself.