All Cats Go to Heaven
October 8, 2018 7:57 PM   Subscribe

Bruce and Terry Jenkins run a retirement home for old cats (The Atlantic). Their charges are rescues, often having been abandoned due to the death or sickness of a previous owner. Cats Cradle is a short film about them. And where do they go after they die? The Rainbow Bridge, according to Kirk Rudell at the New Yorker.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (13 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite
 
That Atlantic article is so interesting! Heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.
posted by sarahaboulhosn at 8:07 PM on October 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have been crying all day for one reason and now I am crying for another

Thank you for sharing this article
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:17 PM on October 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


That short film (about 11 minutes) is so endearing! And their cats are amazing! It's nice to know there are good people doing good things for good kitties in the world.
posted by hippybear at 8:26 PM on October 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


Cats don't go to Heaven, you abrahamic fools. Bast recalls them from their diplomatic service on Earth to return to her kingdom on the moon, where human servants keep the yarn factories and catnip plantations going 24/7 to keep up with demand.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 9:23 PM on October 8, 2018 [25 favorites]


30 cats and not one is interested in knocking things off a Christmas tree? After watching a blind, wobbly 18 year old go to town on tiny little pine solstice branch high on a table a few years ago, I can only conclude they're pulling a prank on the filmmaker with the tree thing.

None the less, this is delightful.
posted by eotvos at 9:58 PM on October 8, 2018 [7 favorites]


Two months ago, I started volunteering at the no-kill cat shelter just up the street from our new place in a new neighborhood. In part because the cat-shaped hole in my life was starting to throb uncomfortably after my old lady passed away; in part because the state of human and world affairs had driven me into an unfathomably deep depression; in part because the isolation of my life as a work-from-home freelancer was starting to make me weird in ways I didn't like. Spending six hours a week in the company of a great community of cats has singlehandedly poured the color back into my world.

I've been there long enough now to witness the turning of the cycles, the regular comings and goings of sprightly, wide-eyed kittens that instantly want to love all over you and crack you up with their hijinks. It's a no-brainer that they get adopted week after week, like clockwork. But it's the older cats that I've always loved. Because we're no-kill, some of them have been there for years - in one case, I think, maybe even a decade. But they make the place feel like a real neighborhood, filled with quite distinct characters. Old man Butterbeer, a ginger dude who lived a hard-ass life on the mean streets and now just wants to blissfully sleep off his days in the window facing the alley. Miss Ione, a trim lady with all-white fur who makes an instant beeline for any warm lap that's open. Murray, a sleek black boy who's gone sandy-gray at the haunches, whose big round silly face shows up in everyone's food bowl as if by magic. And although I haven't grown older with these cats as I did with my own (RIP sweet girl), I still feel like my life has been enriched, even in this short time, by helping to keep them happy and fulfilled for however long they have left.
posted by mykescipark at 10:34 PM on October 8, 2018 [59 favorites]


In the back of the dark closet is a shelf, and on that shelf is the comfiest, coziest cat bed. But your cat will go to the OTHER side of the shelf and burrow into the stacks of expensive sweaters—sweaters that cost a fortune to dry-clean—and after a while it’s, like, fuck it, the sweaters are the cat bed now.

The Rainbow Bridge piece is spot on, thank you.
posted by wheek wheek wheek at 2:39 AM on October 9, 2018 [7 favorites]


If all cats go to heaven, look out for an occasional surprise dropping through the clouds as our old Tom once again misses the box.
posted by pracowity at 3:28 AM on October 9, 2018 [6 favorites]


I always wondered how/why somebody decided the Bifröst was associated with pets.
posted by Foosnark at 5:53 AM on October 9, 2018


That was a sweet video, and good for them for creating the cat retirement home. From what they say in the video, it sounds like they are getting as much out of it as the cats are.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 AM on October 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


I always wondered how/why somebody decided the Bifröst was associated with pets.

Because Freya and Frigg both really liked cats, and can you think of an animal better suited to an afterlife of feasting and fighting?
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:25 AM on October 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


I always wondered how/why somebody decided the Bifröst was associated with pets.

I think that every time someone posts on Facebook about their beloved dog crossing the Rainbow Bridge. No, Mabel, Odin will not be needing the services of your arthritic Shih Tzu when the jötnar march.
posted by hanov3r at 9:59 AM on October 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


Having never heard the words "rainbow bridge" used except when talking about Chumash stories about dolphins. . . I was a bit confused by the post. Now, I think I'm even more confused. This is a widely shared thing?

I'm pretty sure my previous pets aren't going to get along with each other very well. There's going to be one hell of a cat fight on that bridge. (Perhaps the losing cats drop off and become dolphins?)
posted by eotvos at 8:46 AM on October 10, 2018


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