The Unbearable Cuteness of Jelly Bean
He was too cute for words, a cuteness I had to share practically every time he breathed. He was petite and rounded, his white spots made him a mutant to his brothers, he tilted his head and batted his eyelashes at you, he had lots of whiskers and knew how to use them in a sunbeam, his eyes twinkled in what you knew was joy and love, and he did indeed love every cat or human he ever met from total strangers to brand new fosters. Remembering Jelly Bean today on the second anniversary he went to his 10th life.
On Saturday, July 26, I shared a post about the 18th birthday of The Four Housecats of the Apocalypse. Jelly Bean went on to his next life on July 26, 2023, on the day of their 16th birthday; if you visit the post you’ll see I noted that’s the only year we did not celebrate their birthday because we simply focused on JB. I’ve remembered each of my cats in memory on the date we lost them, and I want to remember him a day all his own. I had intended to post this on Sunday, my usual day for pet loss posts but the farmers market and preparations for that and the heat last week were time-consuming and I wanted to take my time and focus.
Last year, 2024, Mimi had me both working hard out in my renewed garden and also keeping her comfortable as we walked slowly toward the inevitable just two weeks later. In spring 2023 I knew there was likely something up with each of them and vigilantly watched Bean eat, sleep, play, use the litterbox, as I did the others with known conditions. Also in 2023 we had just lost Mewsette in May six weeks prior to Jelly Bean, his decline was so quick and while I prepared for and managed all the cats during the renovations that had me confining them upstairs, in the basement, out of the kitchen. It was more difficult to follow his health because even as he steadily lost weight and appetite he was still so curious and active, adapting to every change as I moved them around, interacting with everyone and acting as he normally would that I thought he had enough to hang on and we could forestall his loss. His end came so quickly, unexpectedly, I will always mix my memories, feeling as if I had neglected his condition and that he was working so hard on loving life as he always did that he even fooled himself, and I didn’t give him his due remembrance. I will be working on that for a while.
~~~
His name was Jelly Bean, but his first name was Rodolfo, from the cast of La Boheme for which each one of them was originally named. That was too serious and I had always called him “my little guy” because he was smaller than his siblings all through his life, taking after his petite mom, and I actually called him Guy for a while. Then he kind of caught up and I started calling him Bean for his shiny nose and then came Jelly Bean for extra cuteness, and stayed. His nicknames were Bean, Beanie Boy, Beanaroo, all preceded by “my little.” The final nickname to add to the list was his profile name “jellybeanbean,” adapted from one of my grand nephews who called green beans, my favorite vegetable, “bean beans” because that’s what it sounded like to him.
Humor me with images. Jelly Bean was most often seen with his siblings and mom and any fosters who needed fostering, but I want to give him his time in the sun, as it were, since most of these photos and sketches and paintings are also of him soaking in the sun, but I also want the focus on Jelly Bean without his siblings for once.
From his first official photo as a kitten at about two weeks, the first of all of them to focus and talk to me when I walked in the the foster room:
…to just a little later as he grew more charming every moment:
…to some silly ones as he grew:
…and one of his most stunning purrformances in the sun, on the sink in the bathroom, trying to convince me to turn on the faucet, which I couldn’t stop photographing and he could therefore not stop posing:
…and then the whole contact sheet:
But there was also a serious and artsy side to his purrformances on and in the sink. For all his silly cuteness, Jelly Bean was also quite the serious meowdel for both photos and especially artwork. I was immediately hooked on the black cats in the green and white bathroom when I had it remodeled after water damage in January 2009, and the totally lucky candid photo of him admiring himself in the mirror got me started on photo-based greeting cards and selling prints of my cat photos. Jelly Bean really rocked it as he spent more time in there besides drinking from the faucet. “Compositions in Black and Green, the inspiration,” below, was literally the inspiration to the series of greeting cards and calendars, and then to gift items.
This whole composition brought to mind photos of quiet moments, light and shadow, contemplation that I’d admired for years, and here Jelly Bean is the purrfect subject for a photo in that realm. And then this candid photo at the top of this post, curiously reaching for my paintbrushes soaking in water on the windowsill, looking eagerly creative. I always called it “A Sudden Inspiration,” something that happens to me too, and I know he had an idea about something he could do with those brushes. It’s the one I use as the image for my handmade gallery.
And several of my favorite paintings, ones that I feel I achieved a technique or a higher ability in pastel and watercolor and oil pastel that I’d not achieved before:
I’ll continue to share what an inspiration he was every day. This is just the visual outcomes for me, that’s not his sweetness and purrsonality, what an incredible foster brother he was to both kittens and adult cats, how he loved all people, and the special bond he and I had.
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Thank you for following our grief journey after losing aix members of our feline family.
I hope sharing our experiences have helped you in some way, as sharing my experiences with you helps me.
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
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That first shot is so cute.
No doubt about it, totally cute!