In Mary Gaitskill’s essay ‘Lost Cat’, she recounts a conversation she has after telling someone about her kitten, Gattino, who was missing.
I told him the story and he said, ‘Oh, that was your trauma, was it?’
I said yes. Yes, it was a trauma.
You could say he was unkind. You could say I was silly.
The shocking thing to most people is that my house burnt down. But my trauma, like Gaitskill’s, is also my lost cat. Pets die all the time; homes burn down less so. And I loved my home, but I tell myself I would re-live the fire daily if it meant Beba had lived.
I used to have a meditation teacher who, during a Loving-Kindness meditation, would instruct you to visualise someone you loved, a simple, pure love—best not a lover or partner or parent—but the sort you feel for a young child or pet. This instruction was lost on me. Until we got Beba. Beba Hermann-Bermann Panda-Pop Weindling-Willms, a silly cat with a silly name. Found as a tiny, gunky-eyed, flea-ridden kitten on the side of a creek by some friends. My boyfriend said we couldn’t take her in. A few weeks later, he came home with her wrapped in his jacket.
I was smitten. I don’t sing, but I sang for her. I reprised the greatest hits from Cats in dedication to her. I restyled J.LO’s classic in honour of Beba from the Creek. When I worked, she would sleep on my lap or stick her paws underneath my laptop, trying to knock it off its stand. We took daily naps together. She was exuberant and, unfortunately, a biter. Her favourite activities included digging in plant pots, watching us cook, and ‘stair mouse’—which consisted of throwing toys down the stairs, so she could ‘hunt’ them. She was incredibly pretty and behaved like a terrible lout. We had to remember to close the loo seat, or she would drink from the toilet bowl. She was charming, if a little dim. I didn’t realise a cat could be charismatic until I met her.
For many reasons, I hid my grief for Beba behind the trauma of watching my house burn down. I thought for a long time this was because I was embarrassed of such profound grief over a pet, or I was fearful that other people would make me feel embarrassed about it—but now, I’m not sure that was quite it. Even though the house was the first I had furnished from scratch, picking out everything in it, and even though it contained my childhood copy of The Little Prince and limited edition prints and a carefully curated wardrobe of many vintage and irreplaceable items, most of which had been shipped halfway across the world at great expense, I never felt quite at home in Melbourne until we got Beba. Stuff is, I suppose, just stuff—even if it comes loaded with stories and significance.
Gaitskill’s essay is about Gattino, but it is also a meditation on love and loss. Somehow, other forms of complex love and loss were easier to live with, if harder to understand, than losing a cat.
© Miranda Weindling 2023-08-25