We’ve missed stuff, kittens.
St. Patrick’s Day was the first casualty, but hot on its green heels were Easter, and Mother’s Day, and now sparkly Memorial Day.
We must make sure that missing stuff doesn’t mean missing out.
Please don’t misunderstand me. We can — we must — mourn the stuff missed. Milestones. Moments. Holidays. Holy days. Ordinary days made all the more splendid for being skipped.
Let’s grieve. But then let’s get going.
If you’re reading this, you and I are the lucky ones. (If “luck” is a thing, which it is not, but we will leave that semantic silliness for another time.) We are alive, kittens. Whatever we have endured in these days and weeks and millennia, we are still here. We still have the luxury of writing and reading about cats.
We get to go forward, whatever that will look like, whenever “forward” will involve motion.
So I recommend we take inspiration from some of the grizzled greybeards of Tabby’s Place. The cats gratuitously pictured here have all lived the equivalent of One Jillion Years in human time. Whether bounced through the shelter system, stalking the streets or otherwise abandoned by humanity, they have missed all the milestones of a normal, healthy cathood.
They are not pining. They are not whining. (That is a blatant lie. They — led loudly by Cheela — are whining early and often for fish mush. But that’s entirely different from generalized whining.) They are not ruing the days gone by, the might-have-beens and shoulda-couldas.
They are moving forward, which often involves sleeping seventeen hours in one position.
They are making the future, which frequently includes making choices between six dishes of pulverized meat products.
They are loving life such as it is, which reliably means loving the loopy lovers they’ve been given — human beans like you and me.
They’re not missing out on life at its loveliest. Neither are we. Let’s go.
Top to bottom: Cecil, Cheela, Samantha, Walter, Carley Rose. All ancient. All exquisite. All ready and willing to inspire you and me.