“he was a good friend, and a good friend gone still is.”
My sweet and lovely friend Wickett, whom I called (and cooed at as) Wicketty-Wickett died on March 5, tended by his beloved human, also a friend and neighbour, after a long and fruitful life.
Wickett, a Bengal, was possessed of enormous and almost terrifying beauty. On his walks and at home, where he ruled like a Rajah, everyone gasped at his good looks. But he was also a sweet and loving cat. When Frida died, I went over and was a mess, completely uncomprehending and my heart spilling out onto the floor. Ordinarily, Wickett didn’t care to be picked up or cuddled by me, because I did both every chance I got and he would roll his eyes at my baby talk (“Really, woman, I understand full sentences, you know!”). But that day, as I bawled, he sat across the room and looked at me with a keen awareness and then, quite unexpectedly, walked over with purpose and climbed onto my lap where he stayed for a long time as I held him and cried.
The thing about Wicketty-Wickett, the thing we will all remember, is that he was a boy whose circle of love and friendship extended far beyond his home, and this is no doubt due to the fact that he lived with a human whose own circle of love and friendship bounds rapturously and beautifully to the corners of the earth. Wickett was unafraid to love, uncaring about how often you saw him or not; he loved you the same whether a month had gone by or many years.
I’m sharing this beautiful tribute by DS, so you too may know what a lovely friend he was and to so many. Wickett taught us about love needing to be boundless and fearless. And as D puts it, “he was a good friend, and a good friend gone still is.”
I miss him.
Good bye and good night, my sweet baby boy. We all loved you so and you were a Royal and Wondrous Beast till the end.
Second photo courtesy Suzanne Erfurth.