Helping the BadKitten accept loss of his buddy Rags

MAY 14, 2016

Thank you from my heart to readers who sent emails, letters and cards of compassion – and a lovely white rose bush – after the recent death of our beloved Rags. Our family is still adjusting to losing our Old English sheepdog, and Benjamin BadKitten has been grieving hard. Our 10-year-old Maine coon cat was Rags' best friend. I have written about Benjamin's many mishaps and acts of civil disobedience, as well as his delusions about his own magnificence. That cat even declared himself a candidate for President and received donations to his political action committee, before his buddy's health took a steep decline. Now Benjamin has permanently suspended his imaginary campaign as he realizes that the big, shaggy dog he loved is gone.

After Rags' death, my BadKitten completely lost his mojo. When he wasn't prowling our entryway and living room, checking to see if Rags had reappeared, he retreated to his cat perch in my study. He had no interest in plopping himself onto my lap, dislodging my book or newspaper, and demanding total attention. In the evenings, he lay on the rug directly below Rags' now-unoccupied leather couch, and stared at me with sad green eyes. Sometimes his gaze turned angry, as if demanding, “What have you done with my puppy?” (Accuracy compels me to add that grief did not affect Benjamin's appetite. Since I supplemented our three cats' diet with canned food, my already hefty Maine coon cat seems to have added a bit more bulk to his hindquarters.)

Gradually, though, Benjamin has begun to accept the finality of his buddy's absence. He has resumed his rituals – winding his long, fluffy tail around my legs as I cook dinner, stretching up onto his back legs to see if he can use my jeans (while I am wearing them) as a scratching post, nightly stints on my lap, and visits to my husband's home office, to interrupt Lee's work by rolling onto his back and demanding to be petted. And last weekend, for the first time in months, my BadKitten joined me in the garden. I've spent as much time there as I can manage lately, planting broccoli, carrots, lettuce, and a second sowing of sugar snap peas. Last weekend, I used a spading fork to stir up the soil in a backyard bed before I planted sunflowers and hollyhocks there. As a knelt to gather stray roots and weeds for the compost pile, I felt a familiar disruption. Benjamin climbed onto my lap, shedding his long, black and brown fur onto my shirt, and leaned against me, purring.

I set aside the weed bucket and stroked his soft head. “The three of us had good times out here, didn't we?” I asked my cat, as I remembered Benjamin, Rags and me enjoying summer garden days. “But now it's just you and me. I do rather miss you as my chief garden staffer.” (Our other cats, Abigail Grump and Tessa the Vague, each had the job for awhile, but Abby said I talked too much, and Tess had trouble finding the garden.)My BadKitten head-bumped my chest and seemed to consider his options. His political career was history (brief, imaginary, and extinct as the dodo.) He could return to the living room and continue the life of a sloth. Or he could accept this renewed – and soon to be rescinded – job offer, which he knows he can perform lying down, with his eyes closed.

While I continued digging and becoming dehydrated in the springtime heat, my once and future chief garden staffer strolled away. (“Waddled” is such a harsh verb, although more accurate.) He settled in the shade under the blooming hawthorn tree, lay down and closed his eyes. Text if you need anything, he seemed to signal. (I do not text, and my wily beast knows it.) When I moved to the side yard to plant the vegetables, BBK trotted at my side and remained, awake and alert in the nearby grass, watching while I set in the seeds. I spread fine wire netting over two of the beds, to deter the neighborhood bunny and a murder of crows from early snacking. I kept the lettuce and carrot bed uncovered, because I'd left half the bed empty for a later planting. This week I checked the vegetable garden and discovered someone had pooped in the only uncovered bed, in the middle of the newly sprouted lettuce patch. Welcome back, BBK.