Goodbye, Kitty
When the child was a baby, he had nice, classic colic; three hours of screaming every night. As classic colic does, it more or less cleared up when he was three months old, though it would resurface if he got over tired and over stimulated -- as for instance, if he was caused to be traveling for long periods of time.
When he was about a year and a half old, we were in Heathrow, waiting for a plane to Leeds; we'd gotten off the Gatwick-Heathrow express bus, after having flown to Gatwick from Philadelphia, after having flown to Philadelphia from Maine, after having spent a weekend at a family reunion. And we weren't done, as I say; we were waiting for the plane to Leeds, and he just lost it. He lay down on the floor and screamed. Forever.
So I stayed with him for a while, and then Sam stayed with him for a while, and then I stayed with him for a while, and then Sam stayed with him for a while, and at some point when I was on break I walked around Heathrow, and happened upon a display made out of a pyramid of stuffed cats. They were all the same -- black cats with white faces and paws, small. Not very small -- just small enough to fit nicely in a toddler's hand.
After we got off the Gatwick express bus, I had realized that we'd left the child's new stuffed hippo that he'd gotten at a friend's birthday party. He wasn't wildly attached to it yet, so he never missed it, but the hippo had been looking out the window of the plane, and then the next plane, and then the bus, and I had forgotten to think of him when we got the child and all the luggage off the bus, and also it grieved me that the poor child was being dragged all over hell's half acre so that his mom could go give a paper in Leeds, and so I bought one of the little cats.
The child didn't appreciate the cat much that day -- colic fits don't put you in a mood to meet new friends -- but he soon came to be very fond of her, and then to love her.
He's never been one to bond completely with one stuffed animal or blanket to the exclusion of all else. He rotated the stuffed animals in his collection. But Kitty (as she came to be called) was always the favorite. She was magic, the child informed us. A very powerful stuffed animal. And she was fearless. She would go anywhere and do anything. And she could jump very high.
She had lots of adventures. She got left in the post office in London once, and when Sam and the child went back later in the day, retracing their steps, she was there, sitting on the counter, having entertained the office all day. She got left various places briefly -- the street, the store counters, relatives' houses -- but always came back. We've got pictures of her climbing the ruins of Bury St. Edmunds, admiring the sheep of Norfolk out a train window, feeding the geese at Kensington, watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
But the very thing that made her such a good traveler -- her small size -- also made her vulnerable.
I was on the last plane coming home from the trip to Albuquerque when I looked in the child's backpack to get her and discovered she wasn't there. I knew immediately what had happened -- she'd been left in the motel room, tangled up in the child's bedclothes. We didn't tell the child immediately, while we were involved for a few days calling the motel and trying to get her back. But when we finally heard that they didn't have her and didn't know where she was, we had to tell the child that Kitty was gone.
This was very bad.
He couldn't get to sleep that night -- I finally had to dose him with valerian. He kept waking up all night, crying and calling Kitty's name -- we finally took him into our bed, where he finally got some sleep.
And since then he's been walking through grief. He's doing better now -- as are we -- but we're all still heartbroken. We discuss the merits of Kitty, that intrepid, funny, brave, courageous friend.
The other stuffed animals help, but they're not Kitty. The child asked me if we could find another stuffed cat, if that would help. I said it might help a bit, but it wouldn't really do it. And that he couldn't make another Kitty, because Kitty had been something that he could create when he was three and four; that at nine, he couldn't do it again. She's gone. She can't be replaced. She was really you, honey, I told him, and you can't be that young again
I know very well that the last great gift Kitty is giving the child -- after all those years of companionship and faithful friendship -- is the gift of walking through grief at a point when he can feel it intensely and talk about it with his mom and dad. And I also know that losing her right at this time, when we're moving and changing our circumstances so greatly, means that she is for the child not just lost Kitty, and lost babyhood, which she would be anyway, but lost life, and customs, and the way of living he's been used to. So I bless her, and I hope --as do we all; this is the fantasy we've agreed upon -- that she's now being loved by another little child who needs just that amount of small but fiesty comfort in the hand.
We're very happy about Bear's Retreat. But this has been a pretty intense summer.
When he was about a year and a half old, we were in Heathrow, waiting for a plane to Leeds; we'd gotten off the Gatwick-Heathrow express bus, after having flown to Gatwick from Philadelphia, after having flown to Philadelphia from Maine, after having spent a weekend at a family reunion. And we weren't done, as I say; we were waiting for the plane to Leeds, and he just lost it. He lay down on the floor and screamed. Forever.
So I stayed with him for a while, and then Sam stayed with him for a while, and then I stayed with him for a while, and then Sam stayed with him for a while, and at some point when I was on break I walked around Heathrow, and happened upon a display made out of a pyramid of stuffed cats. They were all the same -- black cats with white faces and paws, small. Not very small -- just small enough to fit nicely in a toddler's hand.
After we got off the Gatwick express bus, I had realized that we'd left the child's new stuffed hippo that he'd gotten at a friend's birthday party. He wasn't wildly attached to it yet, so he never missed it, but the hippo had been looking out the window of the plane, and then the next plane, and then the bus, and I had forgotten to think of him when we got the child and all the luggage off the bus, and also it grieved me that the poor child was being dragged all over hell's half acre so that his mom could go give a paper in Leeds, and so I bought one of the little cats.
The child didn't appreciate the cat much that day -- colic fits don't put you in a mood to meet new friends -- but he soon came to be very fond of her, and then to love her.
He's never been one to bond completely with one stuffed animal or blanket to the exclusion of all else. He rotated the stuffed animals in his collection. But Kitty (as she came to be called) was always the favorite. She was magic, the child informed us. A very powerful stuffed animal. And she was fearless. She would go anywhere and do anything. And she could jump very high.
She had lots of adventures. She got left in the post office in London once, and when Sam and the child went back later in the day, retracing their steps, she was there, sitting on the counter, having entertained the office all day. She got left various places briefly -- the street, the store counters, relatives' houses -- but always came back. We've got pictures of her climbing the ruins of Bury St. Edmunds, admiring the sheep of Norfolk out a train window, feeding the geese at Kensington, watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
But the very thing that made her such a good traveler -- her small size -- also made her vulnerable.
I was on the last plane coming home from the trip to Albuquerque when I looked in the child's backpack to get her and discovered she wasn't there. I knew immediately what had happened -- she'd been left in the motel room, tangled up in the child's bedclothes. We didn't tell the child immediately, while we were involved for a few days calling the motel and trying to get her back. But when we finally heard that they didn't have her and didn't know where she was, we had to tell the child that Kitty was gone.
This was very bad.
He couldn't get to sleep that night -- I finally had to dose him with valerian. He kept waking up all night, crying and calling Kitty's name -- we finally took him into our bed, where he finally got some sleep.
And since then he's been walking through grief. He's doing better now -- as are we -- but we're all still heartbroken. We discuss the merits of Kitty, that intrepid, funny, brave, courageous friend.
The other stuffed animals help, but they're not Kitty. The child asked me if we could find another stuffed cat, if that would help. I said it might help a bit, but it wouldn't really do it. And that he couldn't make another Kitty, because Kitty had been something that he could create when he was three and four; that at nine, he couldn't do it again. She's gone. She can't be replaced. She was really you, honey, I told him, and you can't be that young again
I know very well that the last great gift Kitty is giving the child -- after all those years of companionship and faithful friendship -- is the gift of walking through grief at a point when he can feel it intensely and talk about it with his mom and dad. And I also know that losing her right at this time, when we're moving and changing our circumstances so greatly, means that she is for the child not just lost Kitty, and lost babyhood, which she would be anyway, but lost life, and customs, and the way of living he's been used to. So I bless her, and I hope --as do we all; this is the fantasy we've agreed upon -- that she's now being loved by another little child who needs just that amount of small but fiesty comfort in the hand.
We're very happy about Bear's Retreat. But this has been a pretty intense summer.
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