If you think about it, Cookie is made of the same ingredients as you.
She is the starch of courage and the soft butter of trust.
She is the salt of the Earth and the sweetness that outlasts heat.
She has been burnt around the edges, but remained warm.
She is delicate, but undefeated.
She is fragile, but uncrumblable.
Uncrumblable. Don’t try to say that three times fast, or you’ll sound like you have a mouthful of peanut butter. Some words are better lived than spoken, and few cats are better at living than Cookie.
As cheery as a rainbow-sprinkle smiley face, Cookie contains no trace of “monster.” Our golden tabby is solid kindness, gift wrapped in fudge stripes.
As you reach in her direction, she begins to purr before you even make contact. The very scent of tenderness turns her all melty with bliss.
If not for her little hazelnut eyes, you might not suspect that Cookie had been broken.
She won’t tell you about her tough times. Cookie prefers to use her voice for giggly jingles. She will meow original songs about how delicious you are as a human being. She will chirp cherry-chocolate serenades at her best friend Cici. She will gab about anything, except the way sadness can scorch a sweet soul.
But her eyes disclose what meows never mention.
One of Cookie’s beautiful eyes is as tiny as a raisin, in a clear case of micropthalmia. This genetic mutation causes a cat’s eye to remain underdeveloped, with limited to no vision.
But, her left eye is a streusel of scars and starlight, a little embittered, yet still bright. We believe she sees.
Scratch that. We know she sees.
Whatever Cookie perceives between her essence and her optic nerve, she sees enough to know that hard times have a kindness-creme filling.
She learned this back in Beirut, where life was far from sugarcoated. Light as a wafer and walking in shadows, Cookie counted on the meager mercies of passersby.
For one fresh moment, it seemed she had been chosen. A woman picked Cookie from the street and brought her to a clinic. The living legends of Animals Lebanon nursed Cookie back from the brink of calicivirus. Her fever cooled, her heart warmed, and her rescuer adopted her.
But before Cookie could get used to a full belly, sorrow scarfed down her safety. Love’s shelf life was over in days. Without a note, without a crumb, Cookie was abandoned on the clinic’s doorstep.
It could have been a recipe for toughness. We all know how a heart can heal halfway. Life goes on, but you are never the same. You choose to stay careful and cool, wary of fickle warmth. You turn from a soft biscuit into a briquette. You scar over in the sweet spots.
But Cookie was made of the finest ingredients.
Brave enough to risk a second breaking, she handed her heart to new faces. Cookie’s angels were in anguish over all that she had faced, but they determined to bake her a new beginning.
The gentle girl with scarry eyes needed a haven where hope could become sight. She needed surgery to remove her right eye, and a community as sturdy as granola bars.
She needed to be a Tabby’s Place cat.
And so she became the cooing, caramel center of our attention.
In the presence of her purr, no one can taste the old extract of pain. The past is stale and uninteresting. The present is the bakery where bliss drips like honey.
And the cat with one “good” eye is seeing to it that we all remember what we’re made of.
When you stick to love’s recipe, you will always be uncrumblable.
Here’s news to turn your heart as melty as a butterscotch chip: Cookie has been adopted with her bestie Cici. Thank you for baking up yet another Tabby’s Place miracle!