Solo Mother

At what cost, love?

by christina on November 22nd, 2006

They were constant companions. Thick as thieves. If one couldn’t, the other could. If one was afraid, the other was fearless. If one was lost, the other found him. The King of Everything found his lovey the day after his first birthday. ChatChat, a wee orange tabby, arrived in our home wrapped up in pretty paper with some forgotten book about cats. There were bigger stuffed animals. There were softer stuffed animals. But none had a wiser, kinder face. My son had found his first best friend. He and ChatChat were quickly inseperable, always together for naptime and bedtime, running through the house once the human learned to run. ChatChat helped him learn how to paint — I found the KoE squat on the floor one afternoon, a paintbrush and ChatChat’s paw wrapped in a chubby little boy hand. “I helpin ChatChat PAINT!” he declared, proudly.

ChatChat helped my son through his first airplane ride (”The airplane is falling! The airplane is falling!” he screamed, until his mama and his cat explained that the airplane was merely bouncing…), his doctor appointments, his first nights in a Big Boy Bed, the unexpected weaning, the rotovirus and the chicken pox. He made my son laugh every time he played hide and seek in the bed, and was always there, patient and squashed, in the middle of the night, in the middle of my son’s arms.

The first time we went camping in the desert, Little Guy wasn’t even two years old yet. We bounded up dunes and down dunes, his shrill shriek and holler of absolute terror filling the 4×4, making it feel like a VW Bug. He was terrified. But the next morning, with ChatChat along for the ride, terror was left at the curb. Whenever we plunged down a dune, the little stuffed animal would plant himself in front of my son’s eyes and steadfastly survey the steep decline while guarding his little charge’s sight. By the end of the day, the KoE was laughing with glee while his mother white knuckled every stomach-lurching charge up the incline and sliding descent back into the troughs of the Empty Quarter’s dunes. When we got on a boat the day after, ChatChat wasn’t afraid, and so neither was the KoE. When we got stuck on the island until high tide at two in the morning, with very little food or water, ChatChat and the kid just played until they dropped into my lap and slept. And on my son’s first day at school, ChatChat sat on my shoulder and kept me company the whole morning.

When we left Dubai for the last time, ChatChat rode in my son’s arms, steadfast and true, one of the only things that poor kid could count on in these shifting, uncertain times.

On the second night in our borrowed home, my son woke me at three in the morning. “I can’t find ChatChat…” he whispered, half asleep. I looked everywhere in his bed, shook out the covers, moved the mattress, everything. ChatChat had disappeared.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’m sure he’ll show up by morning,” but the icy hand of dread had grabbed hold of my stomach and was beginning to squeeze. Our host’s dog was a Stuffed Animal Killer, and the doors in the house didn’t latch very well. I didn’t sleep again that night. I just waited to find out how much of that adorbale, loyal little cat was left.

Luck kept the unthinkable from happening. The dog had started with ChatChat’s eyes, pitted and marked as they were with cataracts from multiple impacts against furniture and floors. At the first audible crunch, my host had sprung from bed and rescued the poor little toy, but first blood had been drawn. The toy was minus an eye and quite a bit of plush. I cried. My son, with that preturnatural wisdom that the very young posess, never asked again where ChatChat was. I carried that little cat around in my purse for four days, and cried every time I saw him. I’d failed to protect him, and thus felt as though I’d failed to protect my son. I missed that cat almost as much as my son did.

I have vowed to repair this cat. No matter what.

It’s a good thing I’m committed to this, too. Cause it’s going to cost over $100 and there’s no way I can get the little guy back in time for Christmas. I wonder if I can make him a wee pirate eyepatch, in the meantime?

ChatChat, you are loved.

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POSTED IN: abuse, grief, love, mother's guilt