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My cat Barney died last Friday.
I was very sad.
I cried, and I didn’t watch television.
I cried, and I didn’t eat my chicken or even
the chocolate pudding.
I went to bed, and I cried.
My mother sat down on my bed, and she gave
me a hug.
She said we could have a funeral for Barney
in the morning.
She said I should think of ten good things
about Barney so I
could tell them at the funeral.
So begins The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, a book from my childhood about the death of a cat that made the passing of each of our pets a warm and comforting memory of its life. And we had lots of pets. By the time I was 10, we had the cats Butterscotch, Sesame, Pekoe, and DJ; Ashes, Cupid, Shadow, Renyard, Mousie, and Lily. The dogs included Samantha, Agatha, Willie, and Nestle. There were also a handful of rodents: three white mice that Bob brought home from the lab one day, a hamster named Elf; as well as several horses.
My mom was in many ways a perfect mother –thoughtful, conscientious, and caring. She saw us as individuals, while still knowing that we were children – looking for her to protect us, take our concerns seriously, and teach us to move through the world with both strength and compassion. Our pets were a part of this – companions for us to take care of and, without being too heavy-handed, symbols of the complexity of life and death.
After Barney’s funeral, the narrator and a friend, Annie, go into the kitchen to have cookies. The author writes:
I gave my seconds to Annie. I miss Barney, I said.
Annie said Barney was in heaven with lots of
cats and angels,
drinking cream and eating cans of tuna.
I said Barney was in the ground.
Heaven, said Annie, heaven. So there! The
ground, I told her,
the ground. You don’t know anything.
My father came in from the yard and took a
cookie.
Big-mouthed Annie said heaven again. I said
ground.
Tell her who’s right, I asked Father. She
doesn’t know anything.
Maybe Barney’s in heaven, my father began.
Aha, said Annie, and stuck her tongue out at me.
And maybe, said my father, Barney isn’t.
What did I tell you, I said, and yanked Annie’s
braid.
Father made me let go.
We don’t know too much about heaven, he
told Annie.
We can’t be absolutely sure that it’s there.
But if it is there, said Annie in her absolutely
sure voice,
it's bound to have room for Barney and tuna
and cream.
She finished another cookie and went back
home.
The narrator’s father invites him outside to help in the garden. The author writes:
My father had a packet of little brown seeds.
He shook some out on his hand.
The ground will give them food and a place
to live, he said.
And soon they’ll grow a stem and some leaves
and flowers.
I squeezed the packet open and looked down
to the bottom.
I told him, I don’t see leaves and I don’t see
flowers.
Things change in the ground, said my father.
In the ground everything changes.
Will Barney change too? I asked him.
Oh yes, said my father.
He’ll change until he’s part of the ground
in the garden.
And then, I asked, will he help to make
flowers and leaves?
He will, said my father.
He’ll help grow the flowers, and he’ll help
grow that tree and
some grass.
You know, he said, that’s a pretty nice job
for a cat.
My father and I planted all of the seeds in
the garden.
Mother made sandwiches, and we ate them
under the tree. After lunch we worked in the garden some
more.
At night I still didn’t want to watch any
television.
When I turned out the light, my mother sat
down on my bed.
She gave me a hug, and I said I had something
to tell her.
Listen, I said, and I told the good things
about Barney.
Barney was brave, I said.
And smart and funny and clean.
Also cuddly and handsome, and he only once
ate a bird.
It was sweet, I said, to hear him purr in my ear.
And sometimes he slept on my belly and kept
it warm.
Those are all good things, said my mother,
but I still just count nine.
Yes, I said, but now I have another.
Barney is in the ground and he’s helping
grow flowers.
You know, I said, that’s a pretty nice job
for a cat.
While I know it hurt my mother greatly to see us in pain – to see us sad, scared, uncertain, insecure – she never shied from letting us know the world as it was. As our mother, she gave my sisters and me the tools to face life’s challenges – the sorrows, the obstacles, the unknown.
A daughter’s relationship with her mother is a complicated thing, and ours was no exception. My mother was somewhat of an intimidating act to follow – she was thorough, organized, and personal, in her life and in her attention to others. But I could not imagine a more inspiring person to try to emulate. She remembered all birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays with cards, emails, and phone calls; supported other people’s difficulties with her presence and words; and aided her family in conscientiously weighing life’s decisions.
While death is often considered to be a sad event, and while I know that, in the future, I will at times be momentarily stopped by my sorrow in not being able to share new joys with my mom, her life is an easy one to celebrate. And through the clear-eyed appreciation of the love and support of family that she has taught us, her presence is not diminished and she will never fade.
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