December 9, 2011
My dearest, darling Betty,
Two days ago Mom found you in an eternal sleep on her
bedroom floor. You had been feeling kind
of sick for a few months, but I didn’t realize it was so bad. Betty dear, I want to tell you how much you
have meant to me – what a magical presence you have been in my life. I do think that if anyone knew how important
you were to me it is you – I really hope you did know, and wherever you are,
you still know. I don’t know if anyone
else would be able to understand completely what you meant to me, nor can I
really put it into words. My love for
you was magical, almost religious, and I find those things to be beyond
language to me, but I want to try to put it into words so that I can put this
letter into your box with you when we bury your beloved, beautiful body in the
backyard in your quilt.
We got you from Emmy’s friend Maeve in 1999. She told us
that her grandmother had found you under her porch with your kittens. I bet you were a wonderful Mama. Maeve also told us that she used to drop acid
and then hallucinate that you were a psychedelic serpent crawling around under
her sheets. We thought that was funny
because you are so un-serpent like.
Betty baby, when we first met each other I was seventeen
years old. I was a high school drop-out
and I had terrible panic attacks and agoraphobia and I was dating a twenty
seven year old homeless guy. I remember
this because I was out with him the night you and I met. I came home around 9 or 10 and you were still
exploring your new home, but I met you in mom’s room and we both agreed that
you were wonderful. Then you walked
around the house familiarizing yourself while I watched tv. Eventually you came into the dining
room. I looked at you from across the
room and you looked at me, and I think at that moment there was a mutual
recognition that we were soul mates. You
raised your tail in your signature question mark position, and then you came to
me and we had a major love session.
I had always loved cats so much, but I had never loved a cat
as much as I loved you. I felt a
personal responsibility for and ownership of you, as I think you did for
me. I felt I was your mother, but I
sometimes wondered if in a past life you were my mother because you loved me so
much.
Betty, you helped me learn how to love. Not just cats but also people. My love for you will make me a better mother and
I will think of you on the day I have kids.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for coming into my life. You made me a much better person. You connected me to my inner animal and
taught me how to love selflessly. You
taught me how to never rustle plastic bags because the noise scared you.
Shortly after you came I finished high school through
correspondence courses. You helped to
achieve what I have in so many little ways.
It was at this point that I developed my love of reading. There is a
picture of me reading Hamlet for one of my last classes and you are cuddled up
right beside me. I also took a creative writing
class where I started being interested in writing, and learned to respect my
own ability. The first story I wrote was
about you Betty – about how beautiful you were and what a presence you had in
my life.
You were with me through coming out – on my first date with a girl I was doodling your name with hearts around it on a napkin, and she thought I must already have a girlfriend. When I explained the situation, I think she liked me more because I loved you so much.
You were there with me through getting into university. You were right there on my bed cuddling with
me under my electric blanket when broke by heart for the first time and started
doing drugs. You were right there on my
bed cuddling with me when I suffered and struggled and wanted to die, but all
through it I knew one thing – you were good and I loved you – this has always
helped me carry on.
Whenever I got home from being out partying, it was as
though you could sense who it was coming up the stairs, even if you were in a
deep sleep on the second floor. You
would coming running down the stairs with your tail up and then throw yourself
down on the front hall rug for me to pet you.
So many times I came home drunk and lay down on the floor beside you,
petting you and telling you all about my problems, and you were the only one
who understood everything and also didn’t care that I was a huge mess. Betty, I love you so much.
When I went to rehab I am not ashamed to say I missed you
more than anyone. I had never been away
from you before and I realized more than ever what a comfort you were to
me. When I was scared and lonely and
couldn’t sleep at night there I would imagine you were there on the bed with me
for comfort. When I came home for a
visit after three weeks I was so nervous to see my parents but so excited to see
you.
When I came home from rehab I worked hard to get myself together, and you were right there supporting and loving me and being beautiful. I felt so bad for you that you had to accept Brenda into your life, and although I love Brenda I could never love her or any other cat the way I love you Betty. I know it was hard for you to live with Brenda, and you would beat her up and spray the house and hide in the basement. I would go down and hang out in the basement to keep you company. I would never chastise you for beating up Brenda even though it was kind of naughty and I always took your side when Mom and I would debate your feud with her.
I think you got more accustomed to living with Brenda,
although you always hated her. At 25 I
decided for the sake of my growth that I had to move out of the rents
house. Betty, you were the one that it
was hardest to leave. You are the reason
why I lived at home for so long.
Although I would miss my mom and dad so much, I could talk to them on
the phone. I was so afraid that you
would be sad or mad at me for leaving, or you would forget about me.
You accustomed yourself to living without me very well. You were an emotionally strong, extremely
intelligent and deep feeling cat but you knew how to take care of yourself, and
you settled down to a different lifestyle, demanding more love from mom and dad
that they were happy to give.
You got into a good routine with Mom and Dad, and I am so
grateful for you for giving them comfort and company and love when I wasn’t
there to do so. Whenever you heard them
bring out the toaster, you would come running up because you knew you would get
butter. Whenever mom sat at her chair at
the kitchen table you would cutely look up at her, waiting for her to tap her
lap to show you that you could jump up.
Then you would purr while she combed you. You helped dad maintain a routine after he
retired by keeping him on a regular feeding and treats schedule. Even though you were so smart, you would
always play along like you thought it was a ferocious snake when we dragged a
shoelace around the hallway for you.
After I moved out I would visit as often as I could – many times
it was every week – and instead of snubbing me or forgetting me, you would
rejoice in seeing me again. It was so
evident that you remembered me and that I was still your favorite, special
person. That made me realize how strong
and real our bond was on your side as well as mine. Every time I would come home you would be so
psyched to see me and so lovey and purring, and then you would sleep in my bed
with me every night I was home, showing me that although you loved my rents so
much, you would always pick me given the choice. How much this meant to me, Betty!
I can’t believe you could remember me so well – sometimes after
stretches of months after I moved to Toronto!
It really showed me how smart and sensitive animals are.
We continued our long-distance love affair, and I became
increasingly obsessed with cats in general.
I started a blog about the cats in my neighbourhood and I think this was
just because I missed you so much, I was trying to connect to you through other
cats.
Betty, when my parents had their house broken into and were
attacked in 2011 I felt my sense of reality shatter a bit. I couldn’t believe that such a thing could
happen and that the institutions that were put in place to help victims were so
ramshackle, bumbling and inept. I felt
that my whole childhood, everything I believed about safety and human goodness
was thrown into question. I was
devastated and horrified and confused, and actually felt sort of on the edge of
insanity one night. At a moment when I
felt like I was about to crack up, and was questioning whether the world was
all just chaotic evil, you jumped up on my bed, asked for pats, and purred your
little heart out. You gave me the most
powerfully loving, beautiful look, right into my eyes, and I knew that even
though everything else had been thrown into question, I could whole-heartedly
hold on to one thing – that you, Betty, were good – and not because society tells
you to be or because you get something back from being a good, loving,
beautiful creature, but because you just are that way, you were born with a
capacity for goodness and love and nothing could change that.
I grasped on to that fact to stabilize myself, and I quickly
re-built my sense of reality around the central, undeniable, unimpeachable concept
of your goodness. I will always keep
you, your cosmic beauty and loveliness and our connection at the foundation of
my spirituality. Betty, for a lack of
better words to express it, you are my angel, you blessed and enriched my life
so much and if you are not proof of the existence of God, I don’t know what
is.
Betty, you’ve saved my life so many times. One of the last times I was home I kind of saved
yours. Or maybe you stayed alive for my
sake. It was the first time you got sick, and you had been hiding in the
basement all day. I kept going down to
check on you and you weren’t yourself.
Even though you were so sick you are so nice you still purred when I pet
you, but you weren’t yourself. You were
crouching in a pained looking little loaf and your eyes were dilated and
staring. You weren’t eating much and I
kept trying to make you drink water, which you did like such a good girl, but
something was wrong. Later that day we
couldn’t find you anywhere.
This was on thanksgiving 2011, and while we were trying to
enjoy ourselves I just couldn’t hide how worried I was. I knew you were getting older (you were 14
now), but I really didn’t want you to just disappear. When we said what we were
thankful for we all gave thanks for you. Later at night after dark I brought a flash
light outside and scoured every inch of our front and back yard for you. I finally found you crouched and scared under
the porch. You were so sick and scared
you seemed like a different cat. You
still registered your love and recognition of me, but I could tell you were in
a different place. I comfort myself with
thinking that when you were in pain you were able to mentally and emotionally
go to a different place where you wouldn’t suffer as acutely as you would if
all of your sensitive nature was fully switched on.
I was so sad and scared to see you this way I sobbed and
sobbed. I pushed a saucer of water and
food under the porch for you, and you ate Luvs from my hand. I’ll never forget how cute that felt. You wouldn’t come inside so I asked Kevin to
keep Fella in to let you recover in peace.
I was so afraid I was going to lose you that night. Early the next morning I ran outside and lied
down in the dirt to try to see you, and called your name and heard your little
meow in answer to me: you were up on the porch and although you were dirty and
hungry you were my same Betty again! You
ate and drank and let me pet you, and you stayed close to me for the rest of my
visit, purring extra hard. I noticed that you slept on the rug beside my bed
instead of on my bed now, but you still purred just because you were close to
me. I took you to the vet a few days
later because you still seemed a little sick.
You hated going to the vet so much and I hated putting you through
it. The vet said that you had an
extremely high white blood cell count, but she couldn’t say for sure what was
the trouble.
You seemed a little better after that, so I went back to
Toronto. I visited one last time and the
first night I came home you got into bed with me and I pet you for probably six
hours and you purred the whole time and gave me such sweet love looks. This visit was our last goodbye baby.
Although your nose became a little less pink in your final
years, you always kept your coat immaculately clean and were extremely
affectionate and often very playful until the end of your days. On December 7th, 2011 you ate
breakfast, you had your butter from mom and your Luvs from dad. Then when my mom lay down in the afternoon
you slept with her, up beside her head and purred the whole time. When my mom got up she left you sleeping in a
little loaf at the foot of her bed.
When she came back into the room she found you on the floor,
lying on your side. Your eyes were open,
but you weren’t breathing and there was no heart beat. I am crying so hard now as I write this but I
am only sad for myself for losing you. I
am truly thankful that I don’t have to feel sad for you. You were only unwell for a short period of
time – you didn’t suffer or waste away or have a lot of unhappy vet visits or
operations. I think that you would have
wanted it to end the way it did. I am
very sad for myself and for my family that we have lost you, but Betty I am so
thankful that we had you and you had us.
I will never forget you. I don’t
see now how I will ever be able to love a cat the way I loved you. You will live inside my heart until I die,
and I hope that we meet again when I do.
I believe that you have a piece of me too that you’ll carry with you
into eternity, and that piece is yours – you created it within me and it was
one of the best parts of me.
Tomorrow I am going to bury you with the family in the
backyard where you lived for 11 years.
You are wrapped in a quilt that mom made, which you loved to sleep on,
and I’m going to include this letter and a lock of my hair so that a physical
piece of me will always be with you forever.
Betty, thank you for being in my life. You took care of me and my family as well as
we took care of you. I’ll never forget
you baby, or how soft your fur was, or how sweet your purr sounded, or the
feeling of kissing your dear head. I
love you forever. Rest in Peace my
beautiful friend, companion, love, daughter, mother, life-partner, soul-mate,
familiar and cat.
With eternal love and blessings with all my heart,
Your Mama,
Ellie.
