Beatle Man

This is Beatle Man, he went to Narnia on New Year’s Eve. I never met Beatle Man, he belonged to my friend Debby and her husband Tommy, though does a cat ever belong to a human? No doubt they belonged to him. He was a sick old boy and Deb and Tommy couldn’t let him suffer any longer; so it was a sad New Year’s for them, a very sad one.

My friends’ pets, whether I’ve met them or not, are part of my relationship with my friends. I don’t understand the symbiotic relationship of humans and pets, and I’m sure I probably romanticize it to some degree, but then again I’m not sure whether I do or not – it is a pretty mysterious relationship. So when Debby told me about her loss I felt her loss and she knew that I could relate to what she and Tommy felt.

Here at the Zuck Homestead Patrick had Celtic when I first met him. Celtic was a Pit Bull. Now I know what folks say about Pit Bulls, and as a longtime property manager I’m not crazy about them, but Celtic…well Celtic was Celtic and he was my “bud”. When Celtic went to Narnia I felt Patrick’s loss; in fact I had my own sense of loss with Celtic; like I said, he was my “bud”; or as the Aussies say, “We were mates.”

Debby still has Mr. Image. Mr. Image is a horse. I’ve never met Mr. Image but I’ve seen photos of him and I usually ask Deb how Mr. Image is doing, especially since he’s getting up there in years.

Alice and Patrick had Edith for a long time; Edith was a Boston Terrier. She went by other names beside Edith, like Blob; the Zucks and Reveres tend to give their pets and kids numerous names and if you’re not familiar with them it’s hard to know who they are talking about. I remember a couple of years ago when I heard that Edith had died; I started to write a piece titled, “Blob is Gone”, it’s still in a Word file somewhere. Poor old girl – her passing was due to an encounter with a car – she was so feisty that she probably thought she could grab the car and flip it end-to-end. Since I had known Edith for quite a while I felt her loss and I can only imagine how hard it was on Alice and Patrick.

Vickie and I watched a program on dogs not long ago in which a new dog owner talked about meeting another longtime dog owner. When the longtime dog owner learned that the other man had just gotten his first dog he said to him, “Welcome to the universe and fraternity of dogs.” The newbie went on to share how that was indeed true, for when dog lovers meet each other they tend to have an immediate connection. 

Beatle Man was, of course, a cat. I’m sure cat owners must have their own universe but since we aren’t owned by a cat I don’t know what that’s like. For the most part I enjoy our friends’ cats, but there has been the occasional cat at a friend’s house that I thought belonged in a barn earning his or her keep rather than in a house extending its claws into my legs, arms, and hands.

Well Beatle Man – here’s to you! If you were loved by Debby and Tommy I know you were loved. See you in Narnia!