“When We Were Little” Wednesday

When I was little, we had two cats - Rabbit and Lena.

Lena was the older of the two. She never had much of an appreciation for my sister’s and my enthusiasm for, um, life. As long as I can remember, she was always going blind and deaf, and was a pretty subdued cat. She was sweet, for sure, but not as much of a “little girl’s” cat as Rabbit was.

Rabbit was our baby. We found him in the garage when I was about 4, I think. A stray, he had gotten into some sort of fight with another cat and had a messed up ear that kind of lopped over at the tip. Because of this, Dad suggested we name him Rabbit. (This brought on some interesting conversations when we would take him to the vet. “You, um, know he’s a cat, right?” the techs would ask us, as though we really were that clueless.)

In any case, Rabbit (or Rabbey, as Ashley and I called him) was the perfect cat for a couple of little girls. He was a cuddler, never fighting with us when we wanted him to remain swaddled in a blanket and be our baby. We would dress him up in our doll clothes, including a pair of denim overalls and a little baseball cap. He also had a Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt, which was funny because 1)he was a cat, 2)we didn’t like the Bulldogs, even then, and 3)he was HUGE, and the shirt would ride up to under his armpits (do cats have armpits?) and his furry cat belly would bulge underneath.

He was such a sweetheart. I never had many friends when I was little, but I always had Rabbit. He was my buddy, and I still get a lump in my throat when I think about him. I miss him. Sweet, sweet Rabbey.