We weep and rage when the bitter comes for the sweet.
But we don’t understand when the sweet comes from the bitter.
This is not a holiday story, although it should be.
This is not a story that will smooth the wrinkles from our tissue-paper plans. There is no red velvet bow to tie the mystery down, no sturdy stocking that life’s claws will not poke through.
If we are looking for a perfect holiday, we should watch a movie starring Lacey Chabert.
But if we are looking for a gift, we may get a holiday story that will hold us all winter.
We do not know what happened in that house. The panes are thick with frost. There is light in every living being. Villains vault through our imagination, but no story is pure sulfur.
We cannot know why the black cat was neither spayed nor supervised. A giant in an elfin body, her heart would have housed all of winter’s wanderers. She birthed many kittens and survived many nights of dreamless sleep. A handcrafted truffle should be treasured, yet her forehead went un-kissed.
The muddled seasons were bleak and bitter. Still, she did not turn semisweet.
The nameless cat flowed like syrup over each small gift, each unbidden miracle, each kitten who shared her hopeful face and her dancing DNA. We do not know what happened to the kittens. Still, she did not turn bittersweet.
But the night came when all the stars hid their faces and wept. We freeze in the doorway of the details, as though standing at a Blue Christmas service unsure of what we believe. There was a visitor, a dog, a tear in the canopy of kindness. The pregnant cat was tossed and torn, thrown into labor, bereaved of half her litter in an instant.
We do not know what happened in that house, only that the people slept. We do not know what the trusting truffle felt, how intensely she ached. Bitterness came for the sweet.
Morning came, and the sleepers took mother and kittens to be euthanized.
This is the part of the story where we gasp for air and plead for a holiday. Kindness must conquer. Light must overcome the darkness, even if the dark cannot comprehend it. Healing must be swift, so we can breathe again.
This is the part of the story where we are tiny as children and as large as hope. And then what happened? We lean in. We squeeze our hands together and realize they are very small. We tremble for a hero.
But holidays are too baffling to fit inside our stories.
Our hero came, a dog rescuer who rose to her full height. She would take the mother and kittens. She would take hold of life and shake the shadows clean off. She would remember something she’d heard about a sanctuary for the bitter and the broken.
The nameless cat would become a Tabby’s Place cat, and our Founder would call her Mara.
Mara. Woodenly translated, the name means “bitter” in Hebrew. But stories and souls are soft things, and Mara can be massaged to mean “strong.” “Tough.”
Children and mother cats remember what we forget. To be strong and tough, you must remain sweet.
Mara made it to the emergency vet, who deemed her pain too severe for any diagnostics. On a night as bright as dawn, nurses and specialists turned into a heavenly host. They folded time in on itself, pulling the rafters of the constellations. In twelve hours, they spoke every promise the years had left unsaid.
They informed us that Mara had a single white toe, dipped in light. Wherever she walked, she carried the reminder.
We are greedy for the sigh of relief, the final credits where Mara and kittens come home as fat as fondue. We want the holiday story.
What we get is the actual holiday, the day in which life goes on. We may not get the whole family around the dinner table, but we get the Blue Christmas service where strangers share hugs and hymns and wrinkled stories. We may not glimpse the healing of all things, but we get to sit with our cousin on the basement stairs and break off pieces of pie crust over wretched hilarious childhood stories.
We did not get the mother and four victorious preemies, for two of Mara’s gifts slipped off in the stars’ arms. We did not get the trumpet fanfare, only the soft voices of intensive care and the agonized decision to amputate Mara’s leg.
We did not even get the satisfaction of Mara as Rambo, the unspoken expectation that bitter begets bitter. When the story shatters our hearts, we take long drags of our anger. We nurse our bewilderment. We script the neglected cat to be feisty and imperial.
Mara would not turn semisweet.
In the greatest pain of her life, Mara purred at the softest “hi.” She rolled for strangers, baring her belly as though she had never been betrayed. We do not know what happened in the safe house of her soul, but we know she did not forget. We do not know how grace grabs the pen, but we know a holiday story when we hear it.
From the night of bitterness came the sweetest cat under the stars. From violence and silence came the mews of two premature, prevailing kittens. Jonathan named them Jampa (Tibetan for “loving-kindness”) and Amala (Tibetan for “pure one, spotless”).
On three strong legs, Mara is making her home between the sighs and the stories. With the sweetness of all who forgive, Mara is taking us home to the hope that endures: wrinkled, wobbly, wonderful. To the applause of angels and children, Mara is hosting the holidays every day called “today.”
This is a holiday story for the limping and the living. We do not know what happens in tomorrow’s house. But together, we are tough and strong enough to stay sweet.