Tutti is Italian for “everyone.”
È perfetto, cento percento.
For our Tuttie is for everyone.
Tuttie is for Wally, the velvet introvert.
Wally is Tuttie’s brother by birth. If Tuttie is a piccolo, all sky-high melody, Wally is the earthy oom-pah of the tuba. Tuttie tootles, twitters, and tunes her heartstrings to the nearest humans. Wally is the unhurried heartbeat under bashful blankets.
Tuttie looks like a toddler, no bigger than a truffle. Wally is wizened yet wizardly, with a cloudy eye, like the kind of weather that gives you permission to be cozy.
She is a giddy geranium. He is a wallflower. She is salsa. He is chowder. Tuttie loves Wally’s Wallitude. Tuttie is for Wally.
Tuttie is for Tootsie, her tortoiseshell neighbor.
Tootsie is Tuttie’s sister by serendipity. Of all the lobbies, in all the buildings, in all the worlds, Tuttie and Tootsie ended up in the same one.
Tuttie watches Tootsie scramble up and down the hall at the speed of a motorized Tootsie Roll, and you can almost see the old cat’s eyes crinkle. Tootsie’s happiness multiplies Tuttie’s happiness. The universe is rapidly expanding to accommodate Tuttie’s happiness. Tuttie is for Tootsie.
Tuttie is for Corduroy, though some might assume they are rivals.
Both Tuttie and Corduroy desire the sum total of everyone’s affection. Throw in Deku, and we would need three entire universes to provide sufficient attention for all three cats.
But Tuttie is for Deku, too. Tuttie lives with a cheerful confidence that either you will lavish her with affection, or you will lavish one of those silly boys with affection, and as long as love is happening, everyone wins.
It should go without saying that Tuttie is for you. 
Tuttie is for you if your lap is soft as dough. Tuttie is for you if you are all knees and elbows. Tuttie is for you if you shnoogle her every hour. Tuttie is for you if you have just hatched from a peanut butter egg from outer space.
Tuttie is for you if you wear couture from Milan. Tuttie is for you if the mustard stain on your shirt is accessorized with Doritos crumbs. Tuttie is for you if you stay by her side all day. Tuttie is for you if you are too busy for more than a pat on the head. Tuttie is for you yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Tuttie is for everyone, as though they were the only one. There are a lot of lovely ones at Tabby’s Place. In fact, one hundred percent of ones at Tabby’s Place fit the diagnosis of “lovely.”
But if Tuttie’s math is right, the only way to get “everyone” is one by one by one. Tuttie is for every one at a time.
Tuttie remembers a time when “everyone” only added up to three. In the tumult of her person’s illness, she and her brothers, Wally and Donnie (who plays the didgeridoo in the Suite J orchestra down the hall), lost everything. Stricken with gastrointestinal issues, all three were unwell and unwanted.
But Tuttie kept her piccolo in tune.
When you are for everyone, you believe there are enough “ones” to add up to hope.
It was almost time for Tuttie’s tutti.
In the symphony, the notation “tutti” tells everyone to play, simultaneously. It is glorious. Your soul leans in, instinctively aware that this is what you’ve been waiting for.
But tutti usually follows a quieter passage, in which only a few instruments are active. Perhaps only the piccolo, the oom-pah tuba, and the didgeridoo. The audience may not understand the composer’s plan. All they can do is listen and wait, anxious for this pensive, plaintive passage to resolve into the tutti. Where is everyone?
It turns out, everyone is for Tuttie. And Wally. And Donnie.
Love’s orchestra began to gather. Mercy was the maestro. Two angels became the cats’ champions, whisking Tuttie, Wally, and Donnie to safety and providing medical care to rehabilitate them. And then, the grieving siblings were swept up in the rowdy cantata of Tabby’s Place cats.
Now, everyone in sight was someone in their corner. Tutti was for Tuttie. It was no burden that she and her brothers were elderly, or that they would need a bit of extra care for the timpanis in their tummies. There is no such thing as “being a burden” when you are beloved for being.
Everyone forgets this. Almost everyone.
But Tuttie is for us, even when we have amnesia for awe, even when we have no treats in our hands, even when we cannot hear the music.
Tuttie is for everyone.
A tutti!