Blame it on the cats.
I am a sucker for New Year’s.
Blame it most of all on Willie, the cat Rashida sent to be our new roomie in the Development Office.
Willie has never experienced a year that is not new. Since no one gave Willie a Page-a-Day calendar for Christmas, Willie gets to define “days” and “years” however he likes.
We do not have this superpower, or at least we do not think we do.
We count 364 boxes, or 365 in years that ate an extra cookie. When we get to the last box, we put on our sparkly hats, grab each other by the shoulders, and yell “do-over!”
It is hard to tell if it is a party or a collective panic attack.
It is hard to tell if we get to start over or we have to start over.
And then there is Willie, who hasn’t stopped starting since the day he arrived. It’s enough to turn anyone into a New Year’s enthusiast.
If you ask Willie, he arrived at Tabby’s Place two hundred years ago. It has been a colorful couple of centuries, but Willie knows the arc of history bends towards warm arms.
Two hundred years ago, which is to say last summer, Willie was as overwhelmed as a gerbil in Times Square. The keen eyes of kindness saw him, stumbling and bewildered, as groggy and foggy as if he had been born yesterday.
Willie confirmed that he, and the rest of us, were all born yesterday.
Sweet as cake despite his compromised condition, he wished his hero, “happy New Year!” What’s that? Had she not heard? Today was the first day of all the days. Today had the power to be a “yes” to all the yesterdays.
Tomorrow might never come, but Willie was betting the house on another new year.
In medical terms, Willie was “neurologically inappropriate,” and also “fixin’ to die.” There was some question whether he would even survive the ride to the emergency vet.
Willie was not asking that question. Willie had already commenced the countdown to New Year’s.
Our valiant vet team stabilized Willie, and intensive care saved his life. But just when we were about to pull out the party hats, Willie’s symptoms returned.
They were as brash and unwelcome as that guy who won’t stop talking about his resolutions to eat more quinoa and run twelve marathons a week. They were as inscrutable as the way that most resolutions are about making ourselves smaller.
They were a case for our top neurologist, a phenom whose cape is invisible the naked eye. He has seen it all. He has cured it all. He has hand-delivered new years to cats who should have been out of days.
Yet Willie was the first of his kind. Not even Dr. Fantastic had treated a cat with Feline Ischemic Encephalitis (FIE).
This is the part of the party when the easily-queasy might want to leave the room and get some more puff pastry pinwheels.
I’m not kidding. I will wait.
Has everyone with a wibbly stomach stepped out? OK.
FIE is the result of a cuterebra larva migrating from a cat’s nose into his brain, eating tissue along the way. That micro-monster loses its life on the journey, but by that time, the damage is done.
A cat’s only hope is a high steroid dose, meticulous monitoring, and a safe environment where he won’t injure himself while his symptoms resolve.
A cat’s only hope is a “new year,” every uncertain day, complete with party people and revolutionary resolutions against death itself.
Come to think of it, that applies to cats like you and me, too.
When it comes to “rare and life-threatening diseases,” it is generally not pleasant to be a pioneer. But Willie, a true believer in new years, took his diagnosis in stride.
He may have been striding in circles, but life is a labyrinth, with a prize at the center.
For Willie, that prize was a non-stop pageant of people visiting him in his private suite. Every staff member and volunteer was a new world inside the old. Every meal was a moon landing for the cat with big dreams.
(Every meal was an appetizer for the main meal, followed by the follow-up meal, the encore meal, and the post-meal meal, served just in time for the next appetizer. Willie is, accordingly, the size of South Dakota. We are working on this, but don’t call it a resolution.)
At times, Willie waxed angry. Aggression can be a side effect of a brain under siege. Human legs apparently bear some resemblance to drumsticks.
I have watched Willie trot laps — ten, fifteen, more — around Jonathan, apparently casting some benevolent spell. Willie is reactive and remarkable, and patience is required.
But at Tabby’s Place, no mood ever cancelled love’s party. Day by day, love is wooing Willie into the best years of his life.
This is the sanctuary where you get to start again, before you even finish finishing something. This is the cathedral of chances, where lives outnumber nine.
Willie’s present life unfolds in the Development Office. We will be bewildered together. I will keep you posted on my new best friend. He will keep me wonder-struck and new.
Willie may always wobble, but that strikes me as an appropriate stance towards life. Willie is going to live. He will spot the new year in every mundane Monday.
He will also refrain from making any plans that involve the words “Peleton” or “broccoli.” He hopes to end this year fifty percent squishier, and more sizable than he began.
It is a new year for the old cat, and I will not clarify whether I am speaking about Willie, or you, or me.
Eat the tiramisu. Trade the CrossFit for a labyrinth walk. Wear your glitter headband to breakfast every morning. Feed your astonishment.
Happy New Year, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.