Last Updated on April 30, 2026 by admin
Mary M. saw a Facebook video twice before she stopped pretending she wasn’t going to adopt them.
The first time, the math kept her cautious. She was 70. The kittens were young. “I said, ‘They’re kittens, and I’m 70, and they will outlive me.’ But I couldn’t stop thinking about them,” she told the ASPCA.
The second time the post showed up, she stopped doing math.
“That time, I said, ‘I don’t care if they outlive me — I will put them in my living trust.’ I just had to have them. And who was going to want to take this little blind boy? I knew I had the time and love to give them both.”
The little blind boy is Baba. His brother Tamacti is sighted. Together they are a 27-pound bonded pair — Baba a slim 10 pounds, Tamacti a 17-pound “gentle giant” who lets his brother flop on top of him whenever Baba feels like sitting down.
From a Baldwin Park cage to a foster network
Baba and Tamacti were relinquished to the Baldwin Park Animal Care Center in Baldwin Park, California, in June 2021. By the time Arlene Hall, a registered veterinary technician with the ASPCA’s Los Angeles Kitten Foster Program, met them, Baba already had a problem his body could no longer fight on its own.
“Baba had an untreated, severe respiratory infection,” Hall said. The infection had reached his eyes, and the eyes could not be saved. Dr. Casey Connors, the ASPCA’s Veterinary Program Manager in Los Angeles, performed the enucleation surgery — the removal of both of Baba’s eyes — to give the kitten a chance at a life without pain.
What followed was eight months of foster care. Vanesa Diaz, another ASPCA-affiliated registered veterinary technician, took Baba and Tamacti home for the first month. Then Gal Z., who has fostered cats for the ASPCA since 2018, took over for the next six. Her husband Orpaz named the brothers after two characters from an Apple TV series.
“Baba calls Tam when he wants him, and Tam comes running,” Gal said. “Tam is more of a lap cat. But they’re very interested in each other.”
Baba, she added, never seemed to know he was supposed to be afraid. “In nature, Baba would not survive, but with humans, he is so relatable.” She watched him learn to slide across her hardwood floors. He gained weight. He stopped being a medical case and started being a personality.
Pasadena resident Jessica L. took the brothers for the final month before adoption. She had never cared for a blind animal. What surprised her wasn’t Baba’s adjustment — it was Tamacti’s.
“He was protective,” she said. “He stayed close.”
A Zoom call with a retired nurse in Antelope Valley
Ariel Collins, the ASPCA’s Senior Manager of Animal Placement and Logistics, set up the introduction. Mary lives in California’s Antelope Valley. She had owned a blind cat once before. She knew about the obstacles you have to remove and the routes you cannot rearrange.
The kittens slept all afternoon before the Zoom call. Then the camera turned on, and they did not act like cats who had been napping.
“They had slept all day, but for Mary, they hammed it up,” Jessica said. “They cuddled and showed off their true personalities. Mary committed to adopting them that day.”
The official adoption date was January 20.
“Baba isn’t disabled. He’s just different.”
Baba committed Mary’s house to memory faster than anyone expected. Mary had cleared the obstacles, but she didn’t have to clear them for long.
“He is so brave it’s amazing,” Mary said. “It’s like he had been here forever.”
The way she describes the brothers now sounds less like a pet owner and more like a family historian who is still surprised by her relatives.
“Baba — 10 lbs. — will plop down anywhere on top of Tam. The love between these boys is phenomenal. They even sleep entwined with each other.”
Baba’s two favorite spots in Mary’s house do not appear in adoption brochures. One is on top of Mary’s head. The other is the small tray on her walker, which he rides like a parade float as she moves through the rooms.
Mary spent 44 years as a nurse. She has thought about disability for longer than most people will live. She wanted, for the record, to make a small distinction.
“Animals are so much like people when it comes to illnesses and disabilities,” she said. “Baba isn’t disabled. He’s just different.”
The will has already been written. Both cats are named in it.
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