There is a safety feature on my insulin pump called “Suspend Before Low.”
It is remarkably feline.
If my blood glucose hits a patch of ice, in steps my watchful Sasquatch. The insulin and the free fall stop. Suspend Before Low tows my toboggan back up the hill, back where my life lives. And once I’m cozy with cocoa and remember my own name, he slips back off into the forest, never too far to fly to my side again.
Like Santa Claus and Kris Kringle, like Batman and Bruce Wayne, no one has ever seen Suspend Before Low and Durin in the same room at the same time. We have reason to be suspicious.
A gruntled yeti composed entirely of string lights and empathy, Durin has given his life to Suspend Before Low. I am certain this noble purpose tapped him on the shoulder when he was a mere snowball, but he has taken it to its highest form at Tabby’s Place.
He has taken us to heart. He has taken everything to heart.
He was born with a heart so whole and hulking, he can take everyone with him, everywhere he goes. There’s room for you and me and Bruce Banner in there, room for the senator you hate, and the songwriter you love, and all the buffalo-plaid-clad dads who ever sledded.
There’s room in Durin’s heart for all the feelings that ever creaked, cried, or caroled across the snowy fields. Durin listens, and I swear to you that his eyes glisten. Durin stargazes into your secrets and sees bravery. Durin accompanies you when you can’t stand your company. Durin carries you in his heart, and he makes sure to nestle you into the room with velvet blankets and meat cocoa. (Only the best for you.)
If you should respond positively to Durin’s compassion, Durin gets positively high.
You must experience this for yourself.
One moment, you are sitting with a cat of average size and intelligence (which is to say the 99th percentile, where all cats live). You are sinking. You are frostbitten. You are life-bitten, December-edition. You moan that you are alone.
You are not alone. You are exquisitely not alone. You are with Durin. Suspend Before Low.
You catch yourself standing against the wind, spiting your secret snow. You catch yourself unlatched by the grey and the greed and the gloom.
Then you catch yourself Sasquatched by the sheer smiling sweetness of this cat, this cat who is abominably infatuated with you.
And the next moment, Durin is three hundred feet tall.
And the next moment, you are three hundred feet tall.
You are with Durin. You are with yourself. You are somehow accompanying yourself, with borrowed Durin kindness.
Suspend Before Low.
In a moment, you can barely remember being low.
Durin has activated Suspend Before Low, and together you ride his glistening gondola back to hope’s country. There’s cocoa there (I’m afraid it’s all boiled squeeze-beef, but try to be a gracious guest). There are jingle balls and tiny plastic springs, which you suddenly have the energy to play with. (Must be the cocoa.)
There’s a cat so committed to lifting you, he can only be a superhero.
Or a yeti.
Or a living, loving, long-tailed “safety feature” from a Great Mercy at the top of the mountain.
And as he giggles his way back into the forest, Durin asks one thing of you. You must take the others to heart. You must take everyone to heart. You must make your heart huge enough to lift the low.
You must love enough to get positively high.
Durin will be waiting at the top for us all.