At Tabby’s Place, we live from the heart.

We are so close to life, we can’t shield ourselves from death. We are so familiar with death, we can’t take life for granted.

We are so sure of “forever,” we learn many meanings for “home.”

Our favorite definition is Marigold‘s.

I am thrilled and tearful to announce that she is home from the hospital, back from the borderland between life and death. After a harrowing week of intensive care, she is cuddling her brother Lotus, basking in the light of her foster mom Drew, and picking up where she left off in the land of the living.

She is home.

We refused to foreclose on Marigold, though the picture was worse than bleak. She was as brittle as the last flower of summer, gnawed ragged by pneumonia. A broiling fever threatened to steal her fragile new start. She had just left a house of fear, lost and found her brother, and tasted safety for the first time since birth, only to battle her own body.

But she did not fight alone. Marigold had the whole, huge heart of Tabby’s Place on her side. Some worked through the night at the emergency vet. Some washed dishes, folded laundry, and did the million mercies that keep Tabby’s Place alive. Some gave to the Linda Fund. Some shared her story with everyone they knew. Some prayed until they ran out of words, then started again.

All loved.

Now Marigold is healing, which is another word for home.

In time, Marigold will forget the house where she fell ill among 49 animals. She will forget the emergency hospital. And someday, as she grows lithe as a lioness, sleeping on an adopter’s pillow and learning the sunbeams in new windows, Marigold may even forget Tabby’s Place.

It will be enough if our love comes back to her in dreams. The memory of Drew’s face will make her toe beans dance and her whiskers wriggle. Life will lead onward, and we will cheer through happy tears.

But just as Marigold’s strength was returning, another beloved grew weary.

Goodwin came to us from the same hoarding case as Marigold and Lotus. A Scottish Fold who would blush if you called him “fancy,” all he wanted was the peace of a plain brown tabby.

At Tabby’s Place, he was a cherished king. It was no illusion that he seemed to be smiling. He had his best friend Pibb, and soft voices calling him by name. For the first time he could remember, he was clean. He learned the word “cozy,” and it made his eyes smile. Cozy. Ordinary life was astounding. He was home.

But he saw a horizon our hearts could not bear.

Goodwin’s eyes did not stop smiling at the sight of the other home. Death cannot steal what love has given freely. The screen door may only swing one way between worlds, but love breathes easily across the threshold.

Goodwin, like Marigold, made the trip to the emergency vet. They overlapped for a few hours, but only one would leave. The same love fought and pleaded for both. The same love goes all the way into life and into death.

Goodwin’s road led beyond our sight. His smiling eyes closed, but he still beholds us. There is no bitterness or anger in sight.

Goodwin is loved, which is another word for home.

It is not easy to live from the heart. We are frail as kittens in the middle of the road between life and death. We weep, rage, and remember every face we have loved, even when the remembering leaves us gasping.

Love breathes its own life back into our lungs.

We remember the strength of forever.

We are home.

Note: Goodwin’s soulmate Pibb is doing remarkably well, delighting in the lavishment of love and affection that showers her every day. 

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