Happy cusp of spring, sweet sponsors!

This month’s news has me reflecting on the power of a name. None of us has control over the name we’re given, and somehow it shapes and spangles our world in a unique way. Picture how different your life might have been were you given the name, say, Flavian, or Esmeralda, or ButterMuffin.

Or Shifty.

Shifty, our shy grey-and-white guy from last month‘s update, received his moniker for the reasons you might expect. As a feral cat forced indoors for medical reasons, he was scared, slinky, doing everything possible to shift attention away from himself.

I confess I never liked the name. I’m a cockeyed optimist, more inclined to give a name a cat can grow into, or at least we can dream him into, like Friendlypants. “Shifty” seemed too negative to me, too resigned to Shifty’s shirking us. It suggested this poor old soul couldn’t be trusted, when really he just couldn’t bring himself to trust our species.

Little did I know how perfect the name would become, a few dreams down the road.

Where we last left Shifty, our bashful boy was undergoing treatment for dreadful dental drama. Through it all, our stubbornly loving, relentlessly patient volunteers were visiting Shifty in his suite, sitting with him, blinking placidly at him, simply keeping company beside him.

These volunteers’ reports were sporadic at first, too shocking and scattered to fully believe. “Shifty let me pet him!” “I heard Shifty purr today.” “Shifty’s really getting friendly.”

But the anecdotes piled up, and somehow someone convinced someone in high places that Shifty should move to the most human-rich area of Tabby’s Place: the Community Room.

In addition to being where most of our staff has office space, the Community Room is a hub of volunteer activity, buzzing with human voices and human happenings and human hands eager to touch every cat in sight. That’s why most Community Room cats are of the hungry-for-hugs variety.

But Shifty?

It would seem that the “shifting” in our grey guy’s name refers not to shady behavior…but to an extraordinary shift in courage.

You guessed it, good people: Shifty shifted into full-force love muffin mode.

Frankly, we’re all still a little starry-eyed over this. It was literally only a matter of days between hunched-over hissing…and meowing, YELLING, so loudly for attention that Shifty would not be denied his snuggles. As I type this update, Shifty is most likely head-bonking a lucky human with all his might. Either that, or dreaming away in a sunny window, resting up for the next cuddlefest.

It’s a shift, alright.

It borders the miraculous.

And it was only possible because of you.

Dear sponsors, thank you for your own stubbornly loving, relentlessly patient generosity to cats like Shifty. You are their adoring anchors through all the shifts and sways of life.

Thank you, from the depths of my soul and Shifty’s. We wish you a stellar month of surprising joy.