Hearts and hugs and Valentiney happiness to you. If February means love and conversation hearts, February is Brielle’s month. For simplicity’s sake, Tabby’s Place celebrates all of our cats’ birthdays on January 1st. But I am confident that Brielle is a Valentine’s Day baby.
Case in point: the mysterious harmony of the Community Room.
The Tabby’s Place Community Room, where most of us mere humans have our office space, is home to a motley crew of the world’s best cats. The most common ways to end up in this room, rather than one of our suites, are as follows:
1) Become severely ill, such that we are worried and need to keep close tabs on you at all times;
2) Be a kitten in need of socialization;
3) Be at Tabby’s Place so very long that we feel badly for you and want to spoil you with junk food and love all day; or,
4) Be the personal favorite of someone in the office.
Brielle has rocked #4 from her first moments with us.
Given these loose criteria, the Community Room is a ragtag collection of old and young, sweet and cranky, gregarious and lethal (ahem, Queen). As you can imagine, it’s not unusual to find a fair bit of friction between these felines. Although they surely handle their differences more admirably than an equally random collection of human strangers would do if forced to share bathrooms and food bowls, they do it…well, reluctantly.
Peachy and Bonnie hate kittens. Queen hates living creatures. The kittens hate not being permitted to endlessly play with all the elderly cats’ tails. Friction. It’s inevitable. So it has been, and so it always shall be…right?
Wrong.
Over the last 2-3 months or so, something inscrutable has happened. The Community Room has…mellowed. Instead of attacking kittens, Bonnie looks the other way. Instead of snarling at lesser beings, Peachy naps beside them. Babs dozes in the same crate as a heap of kittens.
And Brielle…smiles.
Other folks may offer other explanations, but I am convinced that Brielle’s unshakable serenity has everything to do with this transformation. Brielle is so continually content that her neighbors can’t help but “catch” her calm. When I was in seminary, my professors would have called this “the ministry of a non-anxious presence.” I call it love.
It’s Brielle being Brielle. And, lest you think the Brielle Effect is limited to cats, I’m grateful to explain otherwise. We humans have been the beneficiaries of her infectious peace, too.
As all our friends east of the Mississippi know, this has been a howling beast of a winter. I confess that the successive rounds of “snowmageddon” have worried and wearied me, and by this past week I was…well, not quite a blubbering bundle of nerves, but close.
Then I decided to bask in Brielle.
Brielle is one of those rare cats who genuinely appear to “smile” with their eyes. As soon as she spotted me approaching her perch, Brielle beamed generously, and rolled to reveal her perfect belly before I could even reach out. I’m all for aromatherapy and counseling and everything that helps, but in that moment, nothing could have soothed my spirit quite like Brielle’s purr as it mingled with my prayers. Her serenity was infectious.
I thanked God for Brielle then, as I do daily. And in this month of love, dear sponsors, know that I — and all of us at Tabby’s Place — also thank God for you. Your faithful generosity and love are a miracle at work, powering the peace that Brielle knows so well. She rests easy — and spreads her restful ways — because she is loved, warm and safe. And that’s all thanks to you.
Happy Valentine’s Day, dear hearts. May your February bubble over with peace beyond description, and so much love.
PS: OK, so we just said that Valentine’s Day is Brielle’s day. But she’s also made a very strong case for St. Patrick’s Day. Stay tuned…