Humans try to blur our pores, mask our crinkles, and moisturize away the memories our faces made.
But a senior cat would never hide the truth about his age.
Why obliterate what should be celebrated?
Why fudge what could be Smudged?
With a purr that started in 2011, Smudge is inescapably “old.” He was here before Taylor Swift shook it off. He was born before Frozen. He remembers a time when nobody thought cauliflower should moonlight as pizza. He remembers Gangnam Style.
He remembers everything.
And that is why he does not fuss over being fifteen.
Fifteen is not a liability.
Fifteen is an advanced level of lovability.
Smudge attempts to explain this to everyone, in the hammy old-man yammers for which he is famous. He says the arithmetic is obvious. When he was one year old, his tuxedo was a little less rumpled, but he had fourteen years less history with love.
When he was seven and a half years old, he had fifty percent fewer memories of dinners.
Just yesterday, he was poorer in sunsets. But tomorrow, he will acquire another.
Why should anyone fear something as yummy as years?
Is it that whole “adoptable” thing? Utter that word, and Smudge will snuggle his head into your armpit. That word is not worth his time. (Your armpit is worth his time.)
That word is not worth the early bird discount at IHOP. That word is not about to smear Smudge’s name off the Love’s Most Wanted list.
Yes, Smudge has heard the same thing that you have: cats past a certain age turn invisible.
Some awful enchanter — who probably does backyard Botox on the side — blinds people to all the cats who are older than the hot dogs at a Seven-Eleven. (Which is to say, ten-plus years.) Adopters lurch like drooling zombies towards the young and the perfect, leaving the smudged and the senior behind.
Smudge snorts at this. It is a myth. It is a farce.
Take it from a cat who drools with dignity and panache. There is no such age as “unadoptable.” There is no expiration date on awesome. Smudge is cuddly, canoodly proof that handsome is forever.
But Smudge understands that this comes easier to cats than to the species who tries to erase its own smile lines. Smudge can be patient with us, because love blurred the sharp edges of time for him.
He was treasured when he was young, and he is treasured now that he is old. His mom gathered his years up in one group hug: the more, the merrier.
When grief took him from her arms, time took him to love after love: Tabby’s Place.
Every long life will face loss. Smudge knows. Smudge remembers his mom.
But when love tattoos your timeline, you forget to fear the years.
You believe the best is yet to come, without having to know exactly what that will look like.
You are certainly not worried about what you look like (although Smudge would like you to know that you are looking snappy and spiffy today).
You have entered the Age of Adoration.
You are a Tabby’s Place senior, which means you get to be a kitten forever. Your future is fleece and forehead-kisses. Your safety will not budge.
But not every senior is Smudge.
The world is a blurry, worried place. People feel ashamed of their wrinkly foreheads, when all the while they could be head-bumping someone softer. They forget the longevity of love. They forget that old cats are the gold that does not tarnish.
And in their amnesia, they leave them to languish.
But you remember the seniors.
You are here, reading these words, because you are as snappy and as spiffy as Smudge. You are as stubborn as an old man cat when it comes to love.
Frizzy whiskers and big needs draw you closer. Age is just an opportunity for unconditional love.
You are the reason Tabby’s Place can welcome cats “too old,” too needy, and too “unadoptable” for anyone else. You remember their worth. You redeem the years they lost.
You carried our cats to their most life-saving Remember the Seniors goal in Tabby’s Place history … twelve days early.
Thank you, beloved Tabby’s Place family.
Your love is as ageless and awesome as Smudge himself.
Now go treat yourself to something nifty, like an egg cream, or some goulash. Smudge insists.