If you have hurtled through hard times with your soft heart intact, you deserve a victory chant.
Much more: you are a victory chant.
Everyone hear it for Kamate, Kamate!
Ka mate is a ceremonial Māori chant from New Zealand, called a haka. It is the holler of the hopeless-no-more, the shout of someone who should not have survived, but did.
Meanwhile, Kamate is a serendipitous miracle cat from Philadelphia. She is a bellow of triumph, a grey girl who should have vanished in the shadows, but shines forth.
Ka mate‘s proud salvo translates to, “I die, I die … I live, I live!” The dancers can’t contain the joy of still being here. They mock the defeat that once looked so certain. They are exhilarated … but not surprised.
Kamate’s seismic purr translates to, “I die, I die … unless you rub my tummy!” She wriggles the ancient dance of belly rubs. She is not mocking. She really does want you to shnoogle her. (I am still tracking down the Māori word for “shnoogle.”) When you love her, she is revived … but not surprised.
Ka mate and Kamate both know that death underestimated the wrong cat.
Kamate came to Tabby’s Place much like the Ka mate‘s singer came through impossible odds. The Ka mate refers to a “hairy man/who brought back the Sun so it can shine on me once more.” Kamate is pretty sure this refers to Jonathan, or possibly Bing. But either way, her coming was foretold.
Jonathan’s love turned Tabby into the one who died, yet lives, in every cat we save. Tabby’s passing could have swallowed the sun. But Jonathan, being 49% feline, was impossible to defeat. He turned his greatest loss into the victory of life over death, over and over and over and over (five thousand times and counting).
And so, it wasn’t over for Kamate even when she reached “the end” in a city shelter.
Her family could no longer bear her incontinence. Elderly, sporadically leaky, and borderline diabetic, she was not the kind of cat who makes it out alive. She had lost everything but the one thing.
Yet, even in tight straits, our billowy girl stayed serene. In the stony face of suffering, she remained soft and snuggle-focused. (This is one of the best qualities on any resume. The world has enough “self-starters” and too few snuggle specialists, if you ask Kamate.)
How did she do it?
She remembered the chant of her own heartbeat.
Just across the New Jersey border, the rhythm perseveres. Tabby’s Place is the haka for the hopeless, the “CONGRATULATIONS!” banner strung across the locker room for the team who appears to be losing. So, when we heard about the girl with the wonky bladder and the undefeated heart, we heard our own pulse.
All of our hearts have been hollering ever since.
Kamate is elated to be here, but not surprised. A plump orb of optimism, she radiates certainty. She knew better days were coming, and look! They are here. She is here. We are here!
We are shnoogling her belly and expressing her bladder and expressing our astonishment that such a glorious girl exists.
Now, where did all that blustering bad news go? Kamate laughs, and chants in little chirps. “Hopeless” is hiding in shame somewhere.
Like every bully, fear is a coward. But hope is as brave as the once “surrendered” cat who still throws herself into cuddly rubs robust enough for a whole rugby team. She proceeds on the assumption that everyone is lovable, because they are alive.
Kamate will never return to the life she had before. Her body has aged, her bladder has developed some buffoonery, and her former family is on their own journey. Her past has died, but Kamate lives.
Our stories are different only in the details. The question is whether we will curse the grief or chant about the sun.
Ka mate and Kamate both know the case for despair. It is armed to the teeth and the odds-on favorite. But the underdog is a comeback cat. It walks into death’s dungeon and brings back the sun. It rubs a forgotten belly and remembers the one thing.
And Kamate knows the haka that hard hearts have forgotten.
She will teach us to dance, for the price of a belly rub.
How rich we are, for she lives, she lives!