“Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” – Dorothy Day

“Call me anything you like. I’ll take care of not getting dismissed.” – Tucker

It is All Saints Day, which is an excellent time to compare Tabby’s Place to a medieval fresco.

In old time art, saints are portrayed in gold, crowded together in some celestial conga line. Their halos are as big as cymbals, but everyone is too respectful to make much noise.

The saints of Tabby’s Place are a tad different.

If the late Tucker had a halo, it would be a backwards baseball cap. He would yank it over his face when he didn’t want to pay attention to what you were saying (e.g. “dinner is not for twelve more minutes,” or “we do not run into the lobby meowing ‘SCOTLAND IS FREEEE’ every time the door opens”).

Tucker was a saint nevertheless.

Tucker was a saint long before he flew across the Rainbow Bridge, of course. Death does not make a cat a saint, any more than cheese makes them a parmigiana. (I am quite confident that, on the other side of the Bridge, angels make Tucker plural parmigianas anytime he asks. There are also infinite doors, opening into infinite lobbies. It wouldn’t be heaven if it wasn’t fun.)

Cats are all saints, and all saints love cats. These are facts.

But woe to us if we speak of cats as “saintly.”

If All Saints Day is about remembering our loves, we must remember them as the full-color, three-dimensional superstars they were. Charles was as earthy as the good soil where green peas grow. Charles also systematically excised the green peas from his pate, insulted by the vapor of vegetables. Angelo caramelized into kindness in our arms. Angelo also nipped when that was the appropriate course of action.

Ash was heroic, even when bashful. Unicorn was too pure for this earth. Antin was the strongest cat in history, but too strong to boast. Mullet was made entirely of astonishment. Josie judged no one.

They all had moods and mysteries. They told us what we are here for, but they kept some secrets. They did not hide their hungers or pull in their bellies. They lived loud upon the earth, and their rhythm is still audible in every pulse that loved them.

Some were small as snowballs, Callisto cottony in our palm or Guacamole frail as a gerbil. Some collected years like grandmas collect recipes, Angelo scaling eighteen and Lynette approaching an estimated eighty. They all left too soon. They all know that we still need them.

They are all still here.

They will not keep quiet about it.

The night of the Tabby’s Place Volunteer Appreciation Picnic, the forecast called for fair skies. But the skies yelled over the forecast, and things turned torrential. Before anyone could cry over soggy soy frankfurters, the cats called out.

It was not the sort of rainbow you have to talk yourself into. This was no pale stripe or shy semi-spectrum. This was the rainbow from a child’s drawing, as definite as an upturned elbow macaroni. Every color was distinct. Every cat was present.

Every cat was iridescent, immortal, incomparable.

If Tabby’s Place is known for anything, it’s our exuberance for the individual. We are entrusted with unrepeatable miracles, in stripes and white bibs. Under that old-man ear hair or tortoiseshell swirl, there is a light unlike any this world has ever seen or shall again. They are too perfect to be polite.

They are too heavenly to be “saintly.”

They are too loved to ever really be gone.

Happy All Saints’ Day, beloveds. Until we meet again, keep finding ways to get our attention.

“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.” – C.S. Lewis

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