Fathers, Kittens, and Loss
Grief breaches our defenses in the strangest of ways
Suddenly, my father’s death hits me like a stinging slap across my face.
It’s been more than four years since he passed away. I’ve grieved, moved on, grieved again. I never know what’s going to cause a full-on round of missing him dreadfully (though I’ll probably always cry in the card section of CVS around Father’s Day). Sometimes it’s a sharp pain; other times, a dull ache, like the aftermath of a punch to the gut.
This time, it’s my cat’s name that brings it on.
I’m standing at my kitchen counter, dividing canned food onto three plates. I crush pills in a mortar with a pestle, mixing in warm water to dissolve them. Two of our three cats are on meds, and our little old lady, almost 18 years old, takes more prescriptions than my husband and I combined.
“Are you ready, Buster?” I ask the rotund gray tabby with the spotted belly who’s shadowing my every move. He likes to supervise, make sure I’m properly preparing the evening meal, while his sister hangs back, quietly and patiently.
Buster Kitten, I think, and promptly burst into tears.
The Arrival
Buster and Bella appeared on our doorstep when we lived in North Carolina more than 10 years ago. They were wee kittens, who had apparently been dumped nearby and then wandered our little neighborhood for a couple of days before eventually climbing, weary and famished, onto our front porch. “These look like cat people,” we always imagine Buster telling Bella as they plopped down on the doormat beside the morning paper. He took care of her back then, and they’re bonded to this day.
It was a crisp fall day, and I had already left for work when my husband opened the door to retrieve the paper. We joke about it to this day. “Knock Knock!” “Who’s there?” (Wait for it…) “KITTENS!!!”
Long story short, he got some food for the insistent adventurers and promptly locked himself out on the porch. He was still in his pajamas, with no phone and no spare key hidden under a flowerpot. Fortunately, the garage was unlocked, so he spent the day in his workshop with the kittens. By the time I arrived home many hours later, we knew they were ours. No matter we already had three cats, all living indoors. We’d make it work.
Slapstick
“A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there.” — Agnes Repplier
My dad first met Buster and Bella when my family came to visit that Thanksgiving. We’d just moved into our first house, a few miles away from the rental property where the kittens had found us. We still hadn’t unpacked, but I brined and roasted a turkey anyway. My dad cracked up over Buster, who ran and skidded across the shiny hardwood floors, sliding several feet before somersaulting, spinning around and doing it all over again.
“Buster KITTEN,” he chortled. “Like Buster KEATON!”
Yes, the antics of our crazy little kitten-boy had reminded us of slapstick comedy, and the name seemed appropriate. My dad immediately picked up on it and enjoyed pointing it out to other people who didn’t quite get it.
It cracked him up every time he said Buster’s name.
Loss
These days, we have only three cats, and one parent between the two of us.
Buster, technically a “senior’ cat at 10 years old, has grown more reserved, but he still has plenty of cattitude. We like to say the devil’s in the tail, and his is always held high. Bella was born a bob-tail, so we figure Buster got most of the devil. His nickname since the early days has been Gatito Diablo.
My dad never liked cats when I was growing up. We were dog people, through and through — and big dogs at that. It wasn’t until the cat my sister and I adopted in college temporarily moved in with my parents that he suddenly became smitten. That cat was never allowed to leave, and lived to the ripe old age of 21, in the lap of luxury.
I wish he could see Buster now. I imagine he’d still have a chuckle over the name, but instead of enjoying the antics of a kitten, he’d find a comfy chair in a sunbeam, where an elderly man and an elderly cat could have a quiet afternoon nap together.