Here.
You’re here, and that’s what matters.
We’re calling you “the kids,” our kids, the Lebanon kids, the loved kids.
It is the ultimate honor to be here with you.
You are fifteen* cats from Beirut, a dappled delegation of stripes and stories.
You flew across the Atlantic Ocean, with your tails and your traumas wrapped around you.
You landed in an airport where people say “welcome home” in a hundred languages. You felt the earth move beneath your feet, as your cat carriers were stacked into larger cat carriers. (They are sometimes called “cars,” and they are also used for other purposes, like driving to work or Taco Bell, but none so important as carrying you.)
You chirped and yammered at each other. You mewed and growled at the people carrying your carriers. You chirped, yammered, mewed, and growled at God, who accepts it all as prayer.
And now, you are here.
You didn’t earn your place here. Not New Jersey, not Tabby’s Place, and not the “here” of home that is bigger than the whole wide world, but harder to find.
None of us earned our place here. Those of us with two legs and naked pride like to pretend otherwise. But, like you, we are here, because love looked at us and said “yes.”
You are here because somebody loved you in Beirut.
Someday, when you are not so jiggly from riding carriers inside carriers, we will tell you about the ones who pulled your little bodies to safety when you were broken.
While we were here, safe among our TJ Maxxes and Taco Bells, the angels of Animals Lebanon were there, with you, among crumbling buildings and blackouts and bombs.
They did not hide in their carriers. They went looking for you, because they loved you, because you were still alive, and that was what mattered.
And now you are here.
You are here because we love you.
We love you because you were born.
You cannot lose our love: not if you hide from us, not if you bite us, not if you return our affection with the diarrhea of wrath, or growl at us in foul language.
But we hear you are fluent in languages nobody ever taught you.
Your angels in Beirut wrote to us about you.
We stroked your faces on the page.
Antar, FIV+ and dough-faced, they told us that you were hit by a car and left to suffer. You chose to ignore this evidence against the universe and decided to be “super cuddly.” You could have sulked in your sorrow. Instead, as we were told, “all he wants to do is sit on your face and purr.”
Now, you nudge us with your strawberry nose and cupcake cheeks, full of urgency and affection.
Apollo, your sunny stripes were scarred in a bombing, yet you became the picture of “incredible resilience.” Now, you are our merry marching man. With all four feet in perpetual motion, you are a one-cat parade, driven to celebrate.
You knead so many blissful “biscuits” with your paws, you could feed the whole world the bread of kindness.
Bowie, deaf but dreamlike, you did not lose your melody in the serious moonlight. With one green eye, one blue, you still saw good in the world where you were abandoned. You “navigate with confidence,” purring without ceasing.
You are strength and stardust, here on the shoulders of heroes.
Daisy, warmest wildflower, you sprang, sickly, from a cardboard box. We watched your video over and over. Yet your weepy eyes were not crying as you pressed your dainty cheek into your angels’ hands.
You burst forth from an empty box “full of love and affection.”
Can we borrow even one percent of your courage?
Griffin, sneezy teen, you were the guy who “loves to snuggle after a playful day.” How could this be, when you and your siblings suffered cruelty from human hands?
Why do you not cower, though the sky fell so many times?
Jimmy, you struggled to breathe on the street. That story does not usually end well. Pneumonia, FIP, and FIV ganged up on your ginger body. But mercy put its hands on its hips until the bullies backed down.
Now the road is open, and we will walk it together.
Kai, forsaken twice, you bristle with bravado and unquenchable light. Though people discarded you as a kitten, then as an adult, you never abandoned yourself.
You have been with us only hours, yet you are already absolutely at home, full-bellied and full of confidence.
Lina, Lebanon shattered your limbs but not your sugar plums. Now you rise to greet the day on three legs, a purring peace sign whose warmth no war could wound.
You are the “absolute smush,” so lovestruck you will elbow other cats out of the way.
You will never need to fight for first place at Tabby’s Place.
Nacho, oh Nacho, what have you seen?
Your eyes did not survive your injuries.
You are too stoic to tell us all that came before.
But now, you will never hurt again. You will come to believe us, in time. We are told that you play fetch when you feel safe.
You have so much fun to look forward to on the far side of fear.
Noir, how do you “move through the world with joy and confidence,” though blindness buried your dreams beneath your senses?
Did they grow deep roots in the days of longing?
Is your purr a tree of life, or is it a prayer?
You are our dainty dreamsicle, innocent and ecstatic.
You adore attention, and you shall have it, unlimited and unconditional.
Pax, proud little puff, you were bereft of a family, rejected for your rascal ways.
Yet all your fighting was simply survival.
We honor your life-force, undefeated by the darkness.
Your quick temper is safe in love’s long haul.
Phoenix, a neighbor saved you from a house whose walls shook with abuse. You have seen the worst of what humans can do, yet you “will snuggle up beside people, anytime, any day.”
How do you forgive so freely?
How can we live up to the honor of getting to love you?
Sable, the feather boa of cats, beneath your mane is the bravery of queens.
Your purrs and plush were cruelly crammed into a cardboard box. You developed kidney disease at a young age. But suddenly, everything is possible again. Your softness is safe.
Little glamour-cat, we will learn the full breadth of your beauty.
Tarzan, you are the talker who “absolutely craves attention.”
You meow and purr so loud, it is as though you are trying to be heard from afar.
For three days, you clung to a tree as a dog menaced you from below. You seem to know already that you have landed in a safe place.
Together, we will scale love’s heights.
And Xena, tiny cream puff, you are the one whose face somersaulted the Atlantic to my dreams before you arrived.
You were found too weak to move, flattened by influenza. Now, in the frantic firelight of your eyes, you plead for reassurance. You ask, silently, for everything to be okay.
I want to wrap you in “yes,” because you are here.
You are here, and that is all that matters.
You are here, and we are here, and we will take care of each other.
You will teach us things we did not know, like how to begin again in a foreign land, or how to laugh again after someone has hurt you, or how quickly a nine-pound mammal can imbibe his body weight in giblets, or how to need, or how to pray.
We will keep our promises, like “you will have everything you need, no matter the cost,” and “we will defend you like immediate family,” and “you are immediate family,” and “if you like Salmon Surprise but not Salmon Feast or Salmon Delight, we will go to ten stores to find Salmon Surprise and buy every can on the shelf.”
And, we will tell you a secret.
We love it here.
But “here” never felt so much like home as the day you arrived.
Yes. You are here, and that’s what matters.
Much more on our beloved Beirut babies soon. Thank you for being here for them. Donations appreciated, now more than ever.
Special thanks to our gifted volunteer photographer Rob for the stunning photos of the cats’ arrival and intake exams. (Additional photos courtesy of Animals Lebanon and our staff.) Although traffic delayed the kids by four hours, Rob cheerfully waited so he could play his beautiful role in telling their story.
*You’ll recall we were prepared to welcome up to 21 cats. Our tremendous thanks to Catsbury Park, EASEL, and Animal Haven for embracing Lebanon kitties of their own. We love each one of you.