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The names of your friends

The names of your friends

“How do you remember their names?”

“How do you tell them all apart?”

They are reasonable questions. Still, I stammer every time.

How do you explain how easy it is to know the cats?

You can’t, and so I fail. “Well, if you had a hundred friends, you would remember them all.” I try this line a lot.

The reasonable visitor tilts their head. They have no idea how feline they look in this moment. I barely resist telling them.

“But … so many of them look the same.”

That’s true, until it isn’t. If you’ve seen one tuxedo, you’ve seen one tuxedo. Olive (pictured at right) is the cool girl who gave you her own hoodie when you got sick on yourself at Six Flags, but forbade you from telling anyone. Arnold is the guy from AP Physics class who brought his own Old Bay Seasoning to lunch and always wore T-shirts that said NO FEAR. Uni is the little sister who could beat everyone at chess.

No one, having met Arnold, will soon forget his name.

But here I am, floundering before I begin.

I am trying to translate them into people, when their grandeur is fully feline. Olive is self-respect with immense upper body strength. Arnold is wry and thoughtful and inoculated against shame. Uni is the small cat who has known great pain and chosen not to make it her name.

“They are so lucky to be here.”

It is the most reasonable thing a visitor could say. I am paid to make this point myself. Yes: Tabby’s Place is the reason these cats are alive. Tabby’s Place is a cage-free cathedral for the dimpled, the difficult, and those deemed disposable. They need us, and we need you, and the circle is unbroken.

So how do I tell you that we are the beggars, and the cats are the benefactors?

Uni, unafraid.

Prescott is the cat whose injuries were “incompatible with life,” yes. Her need unlocked the castle. But now, she has swallowed the key, and I cannot remember a time without her. She is the striped Psalter who sings laughter back into my lungs. She is the lithe empath who knows what I mean when I forget the words. She is impatient with melancholy and incapable of leaving me in my own mud.

Ultimate best forever friend Prescott

Mugsy* is the mug shot of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), straight out of central casting. He has the tell-tale jowls, and the head of a blue ribbon turnip. There was nowhere else for him to turn, yes. But Mugsy is the Ferris wheel who lifts me over my own little landscape. Mugsy is the mentor who has entered the valley and come out the other side. Mugsy is the comedian who says “aw, shucks” instead of sharper things. The overstuffed white cat is an announcement that life is still full, even now.

No one could need us more than Theodosia, the pewter figurine passed down through generations. She is tailless and shameless, a weathered bungalow under grey thatches. When her shelter shut down, there was a place for all the cats except Theodosia. She had too many years to fit in the moving van. But it is Theodosia who collects me when my Cheerios spill everywhere. The cat out of time insists we share this moment. She is the silver cloud who takes no rain checks. She is the stubborn secret that there are second chances under life’s floorboards.

They were sent because they needed us, but more than that, they were sent.

Our incomparable, unconquerable friend Theodosia

“Don’t they all start to run together after all these years?”

It is a reasonable question. The answer is a leap of faith. “We all run together.”

“Huh?” That is perhaps the most reasonable question at all.

I wish I could be as clear and coherent as my friends on the floor. I want to say that we are running the same race, from love to love. Species can almost get irrelevant. When I forget my own name, the cats remind me.

*Adopted, as a reminder that good things happen to good friends every day.

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