When the Bad Times are over and the Good Times begin, everything is immediately delightful.
All the anxiety evaporates. Worry is terminated. Mirth covers the earth.
Right.
This may be true if you are a rag doll, or a polyester cat with plastic eyes.
But Tabby’s Place is a sanctuary for creatures with fears and fur.
The story would be so straightforward on paper. Fifty-plus cats languished in one ragged colony. Hunger pressed its sharp fingernails into their ribs. There were no birthdays or long weekends. Upper respiratory viruses lowered their expectations from “joy” to “survival.”
The simple pleasure of Being A Cat was something from a fairy tale or a dream.
With tails entwined, generations jumbled, the cats all slept with one eye open, unless both eyes were gummed shut with sickness.
There was no way out of the Bad Times.
And then, love picked the lock.
Over the course of this summer, Tabby’s Place has had the privilege of tenderly trapping this hurting colony. You, dear donors, have provided the resources.
Our team (I dare not say “we,” for I am only the daft storyteller back at base camp) has returned and returned and returned until every haggard friend was safe. Our healers have nurtured and neutered them. Our foster families have opened their homes to little broken bodies.
The terrified cats have become our cats.
They have not yet become not-terrified.
But we are not worried, for one reason.
They have never ceased to be each other’s cats.
Bello croons over Hummus, and peace spreads like sunrise. Salami becomes salt and light for his cowering kin. Ganache is sweeter than safety for Susan, Weston, and Chaz.
Nirvana cannot yet glimpse enlightenment, but he sees Sorrel, which is enough. Hydrogen and Helium remind each other that they are essential elements. Triscuit, who came with tattered toes, makes a meal of his friends’ refusal to leave him.
None of them leaves any of them behind. We never see them apart. When we cannot find one, the odds are good she is the nervous nucleus, a treasure buried under a quilt of cats.
They are long-tailed carabiners, a feline friendship bracelet sturdy enough to rappel up this mountain. And although we keep telling them that Tabby’s Place is mercy’s meadow, we know they face a steep climb.
Trust takes time, if your heart is capable of breaking and healing.
So they make sure they are face-to-face with each other’s faces at all times.
The more they breathe love into each other’s lungs, the braver they become. One toe at a time, they are taking us at our word.
Salami is experimenting with the strange new hobby of “snuggling.” (He read about this once. But the book had no pictures, and he pictured human arms with warts and spikes. It turns out, arms are very soft and can also be vehicles for cheese.)
Bello is bearing his belly, a star-cluster of spots that rumble when rubbed. He is telling the others. He is questioning the concept of “too good to be true.” It just might be that some things are too good to be anything other than true.
They are attaching all their hopes to each other, and finding they have one free outlet for … us.
They are each other’s cats. They are preparing to make us their cats, too.
I do not presume to know how any of this works. We might assume that the weighted blanket of cats would smother the hope of humans. Whisker-to-whisker, ear-to-ear, they might reinforce each other’s darkest fears about this new Tabby’s Place life.
Instead, they ask each other, “could these be the Good Times?”
Every kitten believes in the Good Times. They are born lighthearted and big-hearted. It is as though they remember a sanctuary from some time before time.
They never fully forget.
And this fall, one brave blanket of cats is reminding each other. The news is rippling across the quilt. Courage is rising. Love is summoning up the old, true story.
If we are very fortunate, they may just let us under the blanket.