Twenty years.

It’s the lifespan of a fortunate cat.

It’s the approximate length of a Meat Loaf song.

It’s childhood, with a little extra padding.

It’s the age of Tabby’s Place.

Some would say our entire enterprise is childlike. What kind of sober-minded, prudent adults actually believe they can change the world by loving lonely cats?

Shouldn’t we focus on something reasonable, like campaign finance reform or learning to fold a fitted sheet?

Yet here we are, twenty years later, still rescuing cats from hopeless situations.

Still believing we can build a community of love.

Still small enough to have the big idea of raising the sum total of mercy in this world.

Still stoked that we get to do this.

Perhaps it’s because we came of age among children camouflaged as cats.

Thomas dawned like the orange sun in a kindergarten drawing. He was our first cat, our first FIV+ cat, and the last of his kind. I can still see his honey-hazel eyes, the face stuck permanently on “smile.”

Gizmo giggled at the concept of “cat suites.” He was a diabetic revolutionary disguised as a blizzard. He declared New Jersey a “cat suite” and moved into our laundry room. Soon, cats conquered offices and lunch tables and the occasional bathroom. Today’s rulers owe their empire to their hairy forerunner.

Slide snickered at solemnity, dragging grim humans to his playground. So, he was FIV+, diabetic, and nineteen years old. He was going to ride a skateboard, and wear his baseball cap backwards, and live and live and live. (Thanks to Gizmo, he was also going to live in Jonathan’s office.) He was going to get adopted. He was going to steal home.

Bagheera forbade us from getting elegiac over paraplegia. In 2005, we trembled at the responsibility of caring for a cat who needed his bladder expressed and his scooting supervised. “Bags” became our boss and our Bodhisattva, giving us years of wisdom and grandeur before wheeling into his forever home. He lived to eighteen, moved to Connecticut and Florida, and somehow lives still.

Somehow they all live on.

Somehow childhood lasts.

Tashi summoned the circus, ring-leading a rebellion against pity, pouting, and personal space. He allowed us to harass him with hydro-therapy, so long as we allowed him to turn over every trash can at Tabby’s Place and flip every expectation of limitations. He raised kittens and raised our eyes to the heights of joy. He turned over any table that left anyone out. He was everyone’s best friend. He is still everyone’s best friend.

Dot befriended her own spina bifida, because it was the dainty key that unlocked our arms. She remained child-sized and forbade us to remain unchanged. She was adopted with another grinning “impossible.” Gabby could not walk, but she could giggle and reign. Their forever family could not resist.

Mittens and Pepper and Hobbes were Jonathan’s favorites, tied with Jonathan’s other four thousand favorites.

I want to fill the page with names. I am greedy to grab you by the lapels until you listen to every story. We did not have time enough with any of them. We reach for them still, and we do not reach in vain.

They bore us on their backs through five presidential administrations and one pandemic, a superstorm and all the dust that bedevils our lives.

They came from hopeless situations, and they let us call ourselves the heroes. They called us home to hope that is not in vain.

Ike earned his name because he arrived while the staff was discussing Eisenhower at lunch. (Would I lie to you?) Ike earned his fame because he lumbered through the lobby like the last living dinosaur. Vet records said he was missing part of his cerebellum. Any child could tell you he was just laughing too hard to walk a straight line.

Lily built her mansion on cancer’s turf, paying off the mortgage and decorating the years with defiance. She was the premier marmalady, audacious in her orange, devoted to her art of assaulting Lobby knick-knacks and liquefying hearts.

Hootz held the titles for Most Perfect Cat Name Ever Bestowed and Most Joy Per Square Inch. Every escape into the back hallway was as thrilling as the first. Today might be the day she found Narnia between the suite and solarium. Today might be the day she convinced humans that there has never been a single instance of “anything” that is not hilarious.

Tyke told us the truth that life is larger than time. Cheela crooned off-key, and eyeless Bellis saw all. Mango made New Jersey a tropical paradise.

Grady and Webster and Bucca and Meatball. Tony and Nuttin‘ and Peachy and McNulty. Dusty and Rose and Adam and Max. Adelaide and Jean Valjean and Morgan and Jackie.

They never left us. They will never leave us. We will never leave them behind.

They called us higher than adults can reach. They called us to love each other.

They called us to the gasp we thought was our last, on the far side of grief.

They filled our lungs with song. (It is only the desire to keep my job that keeps me from spilling the lyrics of Jonathan’s original songs, happily burbled when he thinks he is alone.)

I want to say the names of every volunteer who ever mopped or wept or missed a softball game to become a soft lap. I want to say the names of every donor who ever curled their cursive on a check that changed the world, as quietly as a silent meow. I want to say the names of every cat who would have thanked you with every fiber of their being.

Crinkle Bob and Faye and Stafford and Sherbet. Katrina and Sam and Mario and Mishush.

They called us to courage bigger than our own. They called us by our names when we forgot. They called us children and commanded us to play.

A twenty-year-old is not a child by common definition. Tabby’s Place is a “sophisticated” organization at this point, twelve thousand square feet of smooth operations and experience. We have a four-star Charity Navigator rating. We have eighteen thousand donors from six continents.

We have old men, Angelo and Elijah and Steven, who have been with us nearly two decades. They are the kittens we once were, and the saints we hope to become.

We have experience with acromegaly and nasopharyngeal stenosis and pancreatic enzyme insufficiency and four thousand ways that disaster can break into laughter.

We have Prescott and Grecca and Durin and Trifecta. We have new faces who will become our best friends. We have no grasp of how large a heart can grow in another twenty years.

We have an old promise as new as life: we will make the most of the “least of these.” We will adore the unwanted. We will reject the idea of rejection. We will love the lost. We will remember the four thousand ways love found us.

We will not forget to play with kittens in the lobby when Jonathan gets on the loudspeaker to demand full participation.

We will not forget that we are doing nothing short of changing the world, cherishing the world, challenging the world to fulfill its calling.

Every living creature is a child.

“Hopeless” is a heresy.

Twenty years in, we are a band of beginners.

We are the sum total of four thousand cats who sheltered us.

We have only begun to come of age.

Personal note: I have been here for sixteen of Tabby’s Place’s twenty years, which means (a) I have essentially grown up here and (b) I am now ancient. Some of you may know that my training was not in Development, but Theology. I blame the saints and angels that Tabby’s Place is where I found sanctuary. Also, Jonathan Rosenberg is my hero, my true friend, and one of my favorite people in the whole entire world. But don’t tell him I said that, because (a) he’ll get embarrassed and (b) he already knows.

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