Goodbye Letter to My Baby Bear
Goodbye Letter to My Baby Bear
Today my cat died. He was Calvin although he lived mostly by a variety of cutesy nicknames that changed day-to-day. I adored him and he me.
I got him (and his brother Hobbes) when I was nine, right before I began fourth grade. He was just a kitten then, all gray with a white tip on the very end of his tail. I took to him immediately because, being a cat lover and a rather precocious child, I could dress him in doll clothes and only receive moderate scratches. Despite all the torture I inflicted at a young age I can safely say that he adored me.
He was a softy. He liked people, loved to be held and carried and pet. He rarely scratched or hissed and never bit. He was a sweetheart and, in my long baby-talk soliloquies I often told him he was "the only man for me". I will say that he never took to any guy I ever dated, being the jealous type.
Calvin was my constant, my stalwart little moose. Whatever drama was going on in my life, whatever stress he was always there. I could bury my face in the fur on his belly and he would purr all my problems away. He saw me through fourteen years of life, through work and school and illness and broken bones and heartbreak. Today my heart is breaking but now I have no fur to cry on.
The last time I wrote about love, I wrote about a love that only certain people can understand. The same bodes true today. Only an animal person can appreciate this kind of loss.
Pet love is wonderful but cruel. You can love an animal wholly. Unlike people they will never turn their backs on you, never break your heart. I devoted myself to him freely without fear; the worst rebuke I might ever receive was a sharp cry. And I could always get back into his good graces with a handful of cat treats or a heavy dose of catnip.
The caveat of pet love is that it never lasts long enough. We outlive our animals and eventually have to say goodbye. So: goodbye my bear, I did love you so.
Today my cat died. He was Calvin although he lived mostly by a variety of cutesy nicknames that changed day-to-day. I adored him and he me.
I got him (and his brother Hobbes) when I was nine, right before I began fourth grade. He was just a kitten then, all gray with a white tip on the very end of his tail. I took to him immediately because, being a cat lover and a rather precocious child, I could dress him in doll clothes and only receive moderate scratches. Despite all the torture I inflicted at a young age I can safely say that he adored me.
He was a softy. He liked people, loved to be held and carried and pet. He rarely scratched or hissed and never bit. He was a sweetheart and, in my long baby-talk soliloquies I often told him he was "the only man for me". I will say that he never took to any guy I ever dated, being the jealous type.
Calvin was my constant, my stalwart little moose. Whatever drama was going on in my life, whatever stress he was always there. I could bury my face in the fur on his belly and he would purr all my problems away. He saw me through fourteen years of life, through work and school and illness and broken bones and heartbreak. Today my heart is breaking but now I have no fur to cry on.
The last time I wrote about love, I wrote about a love that only certain people can understand. The same bodes true today. Only an animal person can appreciate this kind of loss.
Pet love is wonderful but cruel. You can love an animal wholly. Unlike people they will never turn their backs on you, never break your heart. I devoted myself to him freely without fear; the worst rebuke I might ever receive was a sharp cry. And I could always get back into his good graces with a handful of cat treats or a heavy dose of catnip.
The caveat of pet love is that it never lasts long enough. We outlive our animals and eventually have to say goodbye. So: goodbye my bear, I did love you so.