I Dreamed About You

April 5, 2026 Bernadette

Jelly Bean has a sudden inspiration and reaches for the brushes.

Of all his family who’ve made their visits in dancing lights and sparkle balls and flower pinwheels in the garden, Jelly Bean has not really visited in the same way. When I went out the door with his body to be cremated he just seemed to disappear. Because of all that was happening that summer with the house and the other losses I thought he might feel left out or forgotten, yet a day has hardly gone by that I haven’t thought of him or remembered something about him. I have a project planned for the bathroom, his favorite room, and photos of him in there, and I’ve felt bad I haven’t even gotten it started. But I dreamed about him last week and feel him around, warm and happy. I spoke my thoughts to him, out in the garden that morning, and then expanded that into this essay.

I made a voice recording of this essay—no video—but I’d like you to scroll through the essay to see the photos of him if you’d rather listen than read so that you know what he looks like in reference for while you’re listening. The recording follows the last photos in the essay.

I dreamed about you the other morning, Jelly Bean, just before I woke. I remember looking down on the top of your head as you sat there next to me on the cabinet in the kitchen and I petted you, you rubbed my hand with your nose and face, it all seemed so normal, yet my thought in that dream as I petted you was, “I don’t have very much longer with him.” And I knew I would love you as much as I could until that happened.

I rarely remember my dreams. I usually sleep deeply and wake fast, but every so often I wake too early, without enough sleep, and I can sometimes make myself fall back to a lighter sleep, that’s when I remember little snips of the dreams I have. When I woke again and thought about that simple quick moment between us I missed you and your warm and purring solid little Hershey kiss of a body sitting there.

Unlike the rest of your family and the others you haven’t been back to visit since the day you followed Mewsette to your next life. The moment your body left the house to be cremated you were gone without a trace. Only now and then, in your favorite room—the bathroom, out in the garden, in the back yard, with the rest of your siblings and now your whole family, do I get a sense of your sweetness and see your twinkling eyes, filled with merriment at whatever you were planning to do, yet I remember you several times each day as I move around this house.

The time was very short that I had with you after I saw symptoms and you were diagnosed, that summer of losing Mewsette in June, then the renovations where I moved everything in the house and moved all of you felines to the basement during the work. Your actions, appetite, activity, affection with me and all the others, seemed unchanged, yet you lost weight, your body changed, your face became gaunt and your eyes tired no matter what we did. But that first day of the renovations you had busted out of the basement door and back into the kitchen just to have fun, then a week later when the work was done and I opened the basement door to let you all back upstairs you were first up, cruising around the new kitchen floor, first to find the litterboxes, still a good appetite, yet a week later we had to let you go.

Your body declined so fast, but not your sweet purrsonality, not even your activities, until suddenly the moment came, just six weeks after your sister, on the date of your collective fifteenth birthday.

On the morning of May 15 that year my inner voice, the one that has never been wrong, told me that I would lose all of you. I wonder now if a memory of that moment brought you back to me in that dream.

Mewsette was clearly headed for something we likely couldn’t stop with her suspected lymphoma, Mr. Sunshine was doing okay with his hypertension and splenic mass but things could change at any time (both confirmed two weeks later when Mewsette and Mr. Sunshine had their ultrasounds), Giuseppe had been fine but after odd behavior the previous night was diagnosed with hypertension and possibly something else they couldn’t define.

But you were still studio wrestling with Mariposa before breakfast and chasing a mousie around the kitchen to get ready for each meal, charming me every moment with—I try to find a more definite word than cute but that just about summed up everything you did.

Maybe it was that moment that came back to me, standing in the kitchen that morning, an observation more acknowledged than put to words in my mind changed from “thank goodness Jelly Bean still looks like he always did” to “I’m going to lose all four no matter what I do…” I don’t remember a moment with you like my dream but perhaps you did come to me if I stood by the cabinet, sleepy from being in the emergency hospital all night with Giuseppe, trying to pull myself together, to put your head into my hand and rub against me as you would do.

Maybe my dream was an echo of that moment, however it happened, returning now after everything had come to pass.

Your physical changes began right after that. But possibly they had begun months before and your little body just wore it better.

Those last days, that last walk you made around the house, visiting all the places you loved, including my lap.

Your last night in an open carrier for safety on my bed with your mom and brothers and Basil and Bella all around you.

Your last morning, before Dr. Elgersma arrived, after you’d gotten away from me and tumbled down the basement steps but still used the litterbox like a good boy, and I carried you outdoors by some intuition, sensing Mewsette out there as always, just the two of us walking around the yard as you looked intently in all the places I felt her presence and maybe sensing your place in this realm coming soon. Was she welcoming you to the beautiful garden as more than one animal communicator told me she’s now doing? I will always be glad I followed that urge and had that moment with you, for you and for me.

Your decline was so quick and you left so quickly, so much was happening with the house, Giuseppe began showing signs of the meningioma that finally took him and then he was gone, then Mr. Sunshine, then Mimi, I’ve always been afraid you felt you were forgotten when each of your family members visited but I didn’t see you.

Maybe my dream was actually a visit from you in that liminal moment of light sleep to remind me that you never really left, but part of you stayed here to help us through the hard parts. And you are always here with me.

It’s been hard to let this sit but now I can finish the project in the bathroom planned in your memory.

Two photos of Jelly Bean in his favorite room—the bathroom—as a kitten back September 2007, also today’s Vintage Photo feature.

Tiny Jelly Bean welcomes me into the bathroom!

He's ready to play! — He’s ready to play!

And here’s the audio recording

Click the pointer on the left to listen, adjust the sound on the right.

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.

Read more articles about Attachments related to the loss of a beloved animal companion.

Also read articles about Pet Loss and Pet Loss in the First Person, where I share my own experiences.

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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