Conversations With Mr. Sunshine

This is another entry in my series “Attachments” about the things with which we develop attachments because they have some connection, however distant, with an animal companion we’ve lost, often associated with the time of their decline or loss.

I love taking a pile of stuff apart, sorting and reorganizing it, from a stack of papers to an entire room. I’ve been taking advantage of myself when I’m in that mood. I have so many things in this house, some of which I haven’t moved since I moved in here 36 years ago, others that have just piled up because I ran out of space and also ran out of time to deal with it. I have basically an entire office that I’ve been taking apart with lots and lots and lots of paperwork and some original artwork that I’m consolidating all in one place, aside from that clothing, household goods, tools.

But I’m being really careful with things because there are so many memories of my cats here, those recent losses and then all the others through the years, changing spaces and removing things they regularly interacted with feels like I’m carelessly erasing them, or that I’ll forget those memories, or forget them, if those physical cues aren’t here. I know that one of the reasons I feel this way is that I fear this cat, whoever it is, who’s been my beloved companion for our time will be forgotten because I’m the only one who knew how special they were so I can’t remove these last traces of them. I’ve learned to be gentle with myself when these decisions and actions come up. Actually focusing on the flower pinwheel and feeling Mr. Sunshine’s presence drew me to talk more conversationally about my fears and misgivings about my plans as I resolved those issues, and here and there some other things changed.

The comfort of talking to Mr. Sunshine’s flower

Every morning and evening I go out in my garden with my coffee, walk the garden paths and stand there near Mr. Sunshine’s flower attached to the picket fence. I love being in the garden I built encouraged by Mimi in her last days, and I started visiting it each morning at some point after I’d lost her in August 2024 because of that daily habit of heading out to the back yard and the garden with her, her and Mewsette, her and Mr. Sunshine and Giuseppe. Before all of them there was Cookie, and Namir, and Moses and Stanley, and Kublai, who may not have had a morning habit but a daily habit, or as close as I could get when I still worked a day job. I’ve felt my cats’ presence out there now and then through the years, but after losing Mimi it was constant, possibly because of the number of cats I’d lost.

Last autumn after I’d lost Mr. Max at the end of August I started going out there in the late afternoon just to take a break for thinking, with so much to think about. As the days grew shorter the sun disappeared behind the hill, then actual dusk approached, that time of magical light and change, and I sensed the the most strongly then, could almost see them move around the yard and around me at the edge of my vision. So I made dusk a habit too, with my coffee. I felt the strongest pull around Mr. Sunshine’s flower, and there began the conversations with the flower, and myself.

How it became Mr. Sunshine’s flower began a few years earlier.

How it became “Mr. Sunshine’s flower”

It was in that photo I took when he and Giuseppe were outside with Mimi and me in October 2023, the three of them up on the edge of a pallet I leaned against the picket fence because it was really sunny there. They’re just doing their thing, each of them, three black cats. Mr. Sunshine has his eyes closed and he’s sniffing one of the petals on this flower pinwheel. It’s just so funny and with so many metaphors, he was always the adult in the room, and especially in that time of loss of all of his siblings he’s just so cool and calm in that photo and he looks very happy.

But that photo and that moment aren’t the only things that tie his memory and spirit to that particular flower. The story begins more than a year before that October afternoon.

In 2022 he’d been diagnosed with an injection site sarcoma from a rabies vaccine in his hip, the very first instance of any illness in any of the siblings, the very beginning of the cycle of illness and loss.

The lump had felt more like a skin granuloma to me because it was hard and moved with the skin, unconnected to anything under the skin, as veterinarians had explained to me in the past. The sarcoma was what the surgeon felt it was and that it was likely connected through his lymph glands into his abdomen, confirmation coming with his eventual ultrasound. He suggested surgery which would involve amputating Mr. Sunshine’s right leg and, depending on what the ultrasound found, possibly areas in his abdomen and resectioning his bowel.

Mr. Sunshine was 14 turning 15 but was healthy and had a great attitude so that surgery at his age seemed successful with a complete recovery according to the veterinarians. The surgery was scheduled for July 25, the day before their 15th birthday, with the ultrasound scheduled for earlier that day so the surgeon had the most recent look at what was inside.

A bird singing in the night

The surgery and ultrasound were several thousand dollars. I went online and researched every place where I could get funding to cover it. At the beginning of July I ended up spending a whole night awake researching and making a spreadsheet of the organizations and requirements and then contacting or applying, writing Mr. Sunshine’s story over and over.

The windows were wide open to a warm slightly breezy July night, the darkness velvety outside the side window that looked out onto the side yard and the garden in the back yard. I had attached two flower pinwheels to the fence that summer, and the breezes made them spin now and then through the night; I knew this because the flowers each regularly made a quick little repeating squeak as they spun that for some reason I found endearing whenever I heard it, sitting at my desk and working, day or night. I smiled when I heard it out there.

But that wasn’t the only sound I heard out there that night. At about 3:00 a.m. I heard a bird, a single song sparrow, singing in the side yard just outside the garden. I hear birds at night now and then, usually a fluttering and a squawking as if there’s a little disagreement, or, worse, a predator threatening them. But I heard no such sound. This was a song sparrow singing a very familiar refrain as if it was daylight, just a few lines of a song as if it was telling the time on the hour, and repeating its performance about 20 minutes later. I felt hopeful in the infinity of that soft darkness, felt there was magic out there in that night, and hearing the flowers spin was part of the magic. That was the moment for me that the flower became entwined with Mr. Sunshine’s spirit.

The second flower had gotten a little tattered and lost a petal by October that year, and winter really battered the petals. In spring 2023 I took it off the fence and put it in a more guarded spot in one of my planters.  I took that photo of the three of them that autumn and the flower that became Mr. Sunshine’s was still like new, barely faded. Even today it’s in the same spot on the fence and as I’ve worked in the garden or sat on the deck, or worked at my desk, I’ll hear that little squeak now and then and smile and think of him, and that day.

Talking to Mr. Sunshine’s flower, actually talking things over with myself

Every morning I go out to the garden and watch the flower spin and do its thing and think of Mr. Sunshine and his mom and siblings as I do my little bits of exercises and yoga out there if it’s nice enough. But at dusk I go out to watch the darkness fall and the stars appear, and I talk to him and I tell him what’s on my mind. I feel I’m talking to them all though I’m addressing Mr. Sunshine. I had been writing my thoughts in a journal and still do, and also recording my thoughts in my phone voice to text and later saving those as text files and printing them out to add to my journal.

Addressing these thoughts to the flower was a natural progression, feeling Mr. Sunshine’s presence and having at least a reliable object to focus on made me address him and made my comments feel more like a conversation. Often I recorded myself so that I would remember what I’d said, but not always. Just that little change from using voice to text only to addressing the flower with the same comments helped me over some rough spots as I’ve considered some pretty big changes that would fundamentally change or remove areas that are strong memories with each of them, and with all of them.

But sometimes I think he hears me and takes action

On February 2, not just Groundhog Day but an important cross-quarter day, a day of change when winter begins to give over to spring, all my uncertain feelings came together about my plans to change so many things that were part of our lives, those places I hold very dear, as if I’d be removing their memory by changing or removing those places.

But as I stood near the flower and talked to Mr. Sunshine I realized that I’ve actually changed all these rooms and things over and over since I’ve lived here, and I was worried about erasing other cats’ memories but when time had passed and I finally made the changes that wasn’t how it felt at all. And all my cats embraced it and it became their place, their memories, and a new memory with them for me. “So,” I said to Mr. Sunshine’s flower, “I guess changing things is okay, it was always okay.”

So much guilt had piled up around these decisions. Since that day it’s faded, though some decisions turned to action were still a little scary for me. But I resolved that , talking it over there with the flower, hearing myself talk about it out loud, something I’d often done to help me make other decisions.

I also told Mr. Sunshine that night that the cats who were left didn’t follow me around like he and his mom and siblings did while the other cats in the house, Bella, Hamlet, Sienna and Mariposa, would follow them and we’d all be together. “Sometimes I’m in a room completely alone,” I said, picturing myself in my basement studio now and remembering the big slumber parties on my work table before. “And no one comes upstairs and sleeps with me at night.”

Morty still lives in the studio and he has them a little intimidated. I had hoped that Mr. Max becoming part of the household would help Morty feel more comfortable. I miss Mr. Max something terrible and for months just wasn’t able to spend much time in the room. Morty isn’t happy by himself in the studio though the screen door is still in place so I would block off the top of the stairs and let him out of there and into my bedroom and the bathroom while I was making my bed and other things. He really enjoyed more space, another window, and especially the bed.

Sienna always loved to make the bed with me, like my painting, and she just loved to sleep on the bed all day long. But when she came upstairs Morty would leap on the inside of the screen door. It has a hook and eye latch so it won’t open but Sienna was nonetheless terrified by him and she and others stopped coming upstairs at any time, except for once in November. Sienna followed me up the stairs and got through the barrier, Morty chased her and she couldn’t get back out. I had to grab him and push the barrier out of the way and wait till she had run downstairs to put him back in his room. The next time I let Morty out he immediately pushed the barrier, ran down the stairs and chased one or another of those four, and these are the ones who are easily traumatized and much smaller than him, so I no longer let him out.

The next morning after I’d explained this to Mr. Sunshine’s flower I woke up and Sienna was tucked up next to me really happy to have our morning petting session. She has slept with me each night since then and lately she’s gone up there for daily naps too. Sienna isn’t one to give up traumatic experiences easily, so I’m glad she found a way to come upstairs that either doesn’t alert Morty or she doesn’t care. Maybe Mr. Sunshine told her it would be okay.

And then just a few days after that, I went down to the basement to get some work started and found this…

Both Mr. Max and Sienna reporting for work, which for them is naps on my table and opening one sleepy eye now and then to see what I’m doing.

Meanwhile in the studio…

I’m pretty pleased with the changes I’ve been able to do in my studio too, with so many memories of Mimi and the siblings and Basil, and then Mr. Max too. I’ve been making the space work for what I’m doing now and better accommodating Morty’s needs and without feeling as if I’m going to erase Mr. Max. The room itself wouldn’t look too different to anyone but me, but one thing I did was add a plant, because Morty is totally uninterested in plants, that’s part of Mr. Max’s memory.

The tall plant is from cuttings my neighbor Denise brought down the day I had Mr. Max put to sleep, when she came to visit. She and Mr. Max’s original person had been very good friends, she lived two doors down, and she took care of Mr. Max and Morty and the others after the man had died, before the family showed up and after until they borrowed the key and didn’t give it back. She felt a closeness with them too. She brought me a little glass with rooted cuttings from two of her plants in water. After a time I repotted the two plants and for some reason I wanted to keep this one on the kitchen windowsill, where Mr. Max had been happy and spent a good bit of time in his last weeks. At the time the plant only had three leaves but it grew well there.

As I finished up reorganizing the studio, I still missed him and wanted something in there that was part of him, also one of the things I told to Mr. Sunshine’s flower. I decided I needed a plant for the space too, and immediately thought of this plant that I will probably always associate with him. It would be happy in the studio as long as Morty wasn’t interested in it. I carried it upstairs and felt comforted as soon as I put it on this table. Morty sniffed it thoroughly and walked away. I decided Mr. Max’s plant needed a buddy and wanted a jade plant, and found this dish garden in IKEA. It feels right.

Don’t dismiss the little things that help resolve grief

Talking to Mr. Sunshine’s flower, adding a plant, finding a time of day to take a break for whatever little habit you’ve developed that helps you resolve your grief, these things are important as you follow your grief journey. In a way they help to fill the space where your beloved companion used to be, they give you a place to put the feelings that have built up as you work your way through, and they are decisions you consider and make that help you move forward.

So maybe I’m not just talking to myself through the flower. Maybe somehow the word is getting through in both directions. However it’s happening, we are all healing as time passes.

Little visits

You never know where the messages will come from or how the visitor will appear to you. But they will. They love and care about you as they did in life and still want to be near you.

 

Thank you for following our grief journey after losing seven members of our feline family.

I hope sharing our experiences have helped you in some way, as sharing my experiences with you helps me.

You can read all the articles related to their loss by tapping the images in the side bar and in articles.

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