Tabby’s Place cared about Finale before she believed us.

We cared, with no guarantee that she would ever believe us.

Love does not come with guarantees, but love does not care about that.

Love is too busy hosting a holy hootenanny for a cat who is the same color as an elephant and twice as wise. Finale earned her name for her position in the colony cat conga line last fall. In the marathon rescue of 138 cats from two sickly colonies, Finale was number one hundred thirty eight. (Note: There turned out to be more. We got them all. Stories don’t end.) 

In a world of ledgers and agendas, it is generally not a good thing to be last. But Tabby’s Place is a world inside the world, and love has a turntable.

Naturally, the last of the hundred thirty eight became first in our hearts. There is a celebration reserved for the last little light-grey lamb to come home.

But Finale was not so sure about that.

Smaller than average, Finale was not convinced she weighed much in life’s balance. Her resume consisted of only one word: “Survived.” Finale had her own reasons for hiding longer, better, and lonelier than one hundred thirty seven other cats.

She did not dream of a princess castle, with tuna topiaries and humans who would sing just because she lives. She did not dream of coming to Tabby’s Place. She did not dream at all, because she was surviving.

Her skin was itchy with infection, and her world was changing faster than her calm could keep up. So, Finale did the same thing you and I do when we believe we are the last and the littlest.

She hid, she hunkered, and she kept her head down.

It’s dangerous out there. Keep your hopes as flat as your little body, and they will never know the painful pop of balloons that fly too high. Convince yourself that nobody cares, and disappointment will never find your door.

It will never find your door, because it will already be in your living room, taking up your entire couch, belching out baloney like, “you are the last cat anyone should care about. Also, no one will ever give you bologna.”

But Tabby’s Place is not afraid of disappointment.

Tabby’s Place knows we are all in one long musical together, and there will be as many acts and intermissions as necessary on the road to … well, the Finale.

There will be key changes, bandage changes, and changes in attitudes. There will be grey strays who find out they are actually silver, and elephant-colored innocents who forget why they were sad.

The last will be first, and the Finale will accept overtures.

It starts slowly, like the first wry sliver of sunrise. Staff and volunteers sit close, in smitten solidarity. They do not force the issue. They do not leave Finale the lonely luxury of believing that no one cares.

With everything upside-down, Finale may take a treat shaped like a star, just one.

Her eyes are fixed on the floor. Those eyes ask questions: Is this the beginning or the end of life as I know it? If I believe you, will I still be me? What happens when I do the thing I could not do?

Treats lead to touch, and eye contact escalates to ear rubs. A Finale may feel so much better, she forgets that this world is not the other world. Which one is real: cold concrete and caution, or the people who sit with you for as long as it takes?

Will this love, unearned and unending, really last?

Could this day, right in the middle, really be the first?

A cat has to choose.

The last cat on the roster picked her team, and the starting lineup is courage, trust, and hope.

The beginning has come. Finale has been adopted.

She is living the mystery of being first, for the first time.

Maybe someday the world will understand. When that happens, we will cheer, clap, and offer all the cynics some squeeze-cheese and jingle balls.

But in the meantime, Finale has begun.

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