“The holiday season” is a tangled string of lights, isn’t it?
There are sugar cookies from salty relatives and flashes of forgiveness under the icicles.
There are people trying to convince us that Hess Trucks have something to do with Christmas, or that shriveled cherries belong in cake.
And then there is Lola, bearing the weight of it all.
Miracles rarely brandish billboards. You may mistake Santa Claus for a grandfather at the grocery store. The nearest angel might look an awful lot like your Aunt Mafalda.
And a tuxedo cat the size of the Hess Truck just happens to be a hero.
Look beyond your sight, and you will glimpse her. Lola is the loveliest cat between the North and South Poles. She is as round as an ornament, but she is no fragile heirloom. You are in the presence an orb and an oracle.
Give her a treat or thirty, and she will tell you grand things.
Lola could not be any smaller, because she is full of worth. When you walk into her workshop, colloquially known as the Medical Suite, she will welcome you like royalty from afar.
No Rockette or reindeer ever moved so gracefully as Lola once she sets her eyes on you. Her legs may be short, but she will dance infinity signs around your ankles. Come, stay. Lola’s eyes twinkle in time with the song you heard when you were a child: it is good that you are here.
It is good that you are here, whether you feel as old as a holey sweater or as shiny as a jingle bell. There are no prerequisites for Lola’s love. There is no gate to her wonderland, no thermostat on her warmth. You have arrived, and that is all she needs to know.
Lola’s age and sass might make some call her “less adoptable.” But those people are not here. We can only hope they get here someday, and learn from sitting on the floor. We will just call her “Lola,” and we will never say her name without smiling.
To Lola, it sounds like singing. She does not wait until December to hear the angel voices, though they come disguised in scrubs, sweatshirts, and original renditions of “Copacabana.”
Welcomed in her width and breadth, Lola will not wait for you to prove yourself worthy. That is a knot no one can untie. Far better that we just give each other cookies, compassion, and additional cookies.
Lola will roll like a Yule log until you laugh, because there is nothing holier than happiness. Lola will share the gift she wanted most, your attention, with Steven. She may smack him merrily across the hindquarters, but this, too, is part of her holiday.
She will even let you borrow her darling Drew, whose business card says “Veterinary Technician” but whose true identity is “Lola Soulmate.”
Lola can give you everything, because she is not afraid of losing anything.
Lola will sing your praises, because she hears her name in every verse.
Come. If you have burned the gingerbread or been scorched by Uncle Carmine’s commentary, Lola will lavish you with a holiday that covers the whole calendar like snow, or better yet, melted provolone.
Gaze into the eyes of the orb who loves full-circle.
Lola is so secure, she can bear your weight.
Let the cat with the kinked tail comfort you, and you may leave a little less tangled.
This is what happens when the soul feels its worth.