Mazikeen, where have you been?

It took us over twenty-two years and four thousand, seven hundred cats to find you.

At last, we are lost in your eyes.

Mazikeen, I am not speaking of your beauty, though that is the word on everyone’s lips. They call you “gorgeous” and “exotic.” They call you show-stopping and a “show cat.” They call you a Bengal, our first ever, and so you are.

Some have even called you “scary,” with neon in your eyes and copper rippling your spots. You would not look out of place on the runway or the Serengeti.

You are the girl too beautiful to touch the ground. Surely, sorrow dares not touch you, like the hands afraid you may be wild. If you know anything about rejection, it is only from books.

But Mazikeen, your beauty has not been your blessing.

Your life was weighed by looks, not love. The “show cat” tells a tale to break our hearts.

You were bought and sold and bred to make more Mazikeens, litters of lookalikes. We dare not judge the people involved, for we are people, too, and we will all need forgiveness before the end of this sentence.

But you are innocent, Mazikeen. And you are an original, with no copies.

Mazikeen, you do not speak of the shuffle that lost you. All we know is that you were weighed and measured and found wanting. Beauty is too light to tip the scales to love. Someone put you outside.

Your dainty toes met moss, but not bitterness. Your perfect spots were soaked with dew, but not despair.

You were determined to remain beautiful by the only measure that matters. You would not let the hurt close your heart.

By the time you came to us, you forgave without being asked. There must have been some homely kindness in your past. Perhaps it was your own kittens who convinced you there is good in this gaudy world.

Glamour is fragile, but gentleness endures. It is the small and the unspectacular who know this best.

There is so much we will never know of your story, Mazikeen. What matters is that you came to us at last. You are the one we have been waiting for.

You will be seen and known beneath those copper spots, though they shine as the sun. Your eyes are prismatic, and you deserve to savor all the colors, from exotic to ordinary.

Mazikeen, do you know the beauty of the ordinary?

We are humble cats here, with missing whiskers and crinkled ears. We are wild or domestic, depending on the day.

You will not be loved in spite of your funny bits, but because of them. No one will Photoshop out your feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), or the breathless energy that gallops your Bengal bloodline.

There is no artificial intelligence to smooth your edges, only the brilliance of a full embrace.

Mazikeen, your dainty feet have finally found their footing. No more will your beauty banish you from the bread-and-butter world of Felis catus.

Every cat at Tabby’s Place is the long-awaited one, the first of their kind. Now, you will know the same donut beds and starry turkey nuggets as all the celebrities with no pedigree.

All eyes will behold your bigger beauty. Love will see you all the way to the place where souls meet eye to eye.

PS: Beautiful breaking news: love has seen Mazikeen all the way to her forever home. 

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