The Bunna Came Back

"The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” – Elisabeth Foley

This is Bunnalinkyla.

She is our 16-year-old Siamese, and as far as anyone is concerned, a mean old biddy.

Her deep-blue eyes are frosted with cataracts and her graceful and agile dance has deteriorated to a clumsy, cautious shuffle. She bumps into walls, howls at the ceiling fan, and generally bumbles about with the dexterity of a newborn.

But Bunna was once the boss.

She’s always done exactly what she wanted. Why, about 10 years ago, Bunna decided she didn’t want to live with us and our (at the time) 7 other cats. Who could blame her? A feline as regal as she deserved the attention and praise of a thousand humans, just as her Egyptian predecessors had. So, one day, Bunna moved down the road to live with Fritz, an elderly German bachelor with a modest peach orchard and a penchant for loose cigarettes. For a decade, these two unlikely friends were inseparable. Even into his 90’s Fritz could be seen tending to his land, Bunna somewhere within earshot, howling freely. At night, Fritz would sit smoking his cigarettes and watching his shows, and Bunna would be perched on his lap in a cloud of smoke, smiling through her spider-leg whiskers.

When Fritz died, a good friend of his showed up at our door, asking if we`d like our cat back. “He’d always said to just put her down when he passed- I mean, who wants a loud-mouthed, mostly-blind senior Siamese cat?”

So, needless to say, Bunna is back.

Older, grayer, and a little less graceful, but in so many ways, exactly as I remember her.

Now, you may be saying, "Yah yah, you got your geriatric cat back, lucky you. What's your point?"

I drove past Fritz’s farm house nearly every day, and I would always slow down and watch for Bunna, even call for her sometimes. Despite how I missed her, I was not intending to snatch her up and take her back home. I knew she and Fritz needed each other, and I would never want to rob them of happiness. My intention was just to make sure she was alright, and give her anything she needed.

Always have an open door for your loved ones. Be open, be supportive, and live with a sincere wish in your heart that the ones you love will find their place, even if it's not with you. They may travel far, (or perhaps just down the lane), and they may be gone for a long time. They may return old and gray, weathered and downtrodden, blind and cranky. But, the ones you love should always feel they have a place in your life, no matter where their’s may lead them. 

Open the door, Kittens.

And until next time, purr on.

- Katzendame