Little Bit: A Cautionary Tale of Love

My youngest daughter, a very special kitten named Little Bit from whom I learned more about living and bravery and unconditional love than I have learned over the rest of my life, will have been gone for nine torturous months on January 11.

I created a small song for her. After she learned it, on her own, she would walk in rhythm to it as I sang the words. En inglés they are

My name is Little Bit.

I am my daddy's kit.

My daddy loves me very much,

and that is the way of it. A little bit.

Later, when I syncopated the rhythm and changed the song to mimic my heart, I altered the words to match. She altered her pace for that one also:

That baby's name is Little Bitty Bit

She is her daddy's little bitty kit.

Her daddy loves her very very much,

and that is the way of it, a little bit.

Silly, isn't it? But not to Little Bit, and not to me.

*

This is the first Christmas I have spent without her for the past 13 years. I miss her like the drowning man misses air. I am both filled with her and emptied of her.

She spent almost every night of those twelve very brief years with either her head resting on the bicep of my left arm, or curled up beneath that shoulder, or stretched out on that same arm.

Each night she comforted me, easing me to sleep with gentle purrs. If she went elsewhere during the night, I never knew it. When I awoke she was always right there.

Little Bit was my strength. She was my heart.

I miss her in every waking moment of every day. Each night I sleep with the little pink blanket her mama made for her. It is rolled up and tucked next to my left arm where she most often slept. Sometimes its head lies on my arm. Sometimes it curls up underneath.

*

My daughter loved me without conditions. In her eyes, I never did anything wrong.

Even when I failed to catch her as she leapt from the top of the refrigerator when she was very young and thought herself bullet proof, an act that wounded her left hip for the remainder of her life.

Even when I inadvertently kicked her — yes, there are nicer and less damning ways to say it, but "kicked her" is the truth of it — when I did not see her in the dark. She had curled up on the thin sliver of blanket on the floor in front of the chair I had slept in the night before.

On the nights when I was sick in my lungs and had to sleep in the chair, she came out and curled up beside me. She was ever watchful, ever comforting, ever loving.

Yet when she developed a small, short cough, it did not seem to get worse, so I thought it would get better. I should have taken her to the doctor then, after the first cough.

But I did not. And for a time, the cough did not get worse. Then it did, almost overnight.

*

To illustrate the love of this child, when we took her to the doctor, he said he would require the x-rays.

I spoke to Little Bit like I would speak to anyone else. I told her she would have to lie very still, that the doctor was a good man who was trying to help. He would only take a photo of her so he would see how he could help.

Then I carried her to the small Xray machine and laid her gently on her side. I told her I loved her very much and that soon she would be with me again.

When the doctor came out, as he handed her to me, he said she moved only the one time, and only to stretch her arms higher and her legs lower, and that only helped with the picture. He had never seen any child with breath lie so still.

As I cuddled her afterward, I wanted to tell her I was so very proud of her, but it was unnecessary. The look in her eyes told me she knew and was also proud of herself for doing what was necessary.

*

The doctor gave us some medicine that had to be administered in a rude way, all but forced down her throat. My Little Bit was a great deal more than proud. She did not like being forced.

I could not administer the medicine. I was not strong enough to do what was necessary. Her mother had to do it, and I bless her for doing so. But very soon Little Bit accepted the indignity as a necessary part of her life. Anything to help her papá feel better.

And the medicine did seem to help.

But not enough. I had acted on the problem far too late.

*

On the cool morning of April 11, 2023, we took her outside to walk in the sun. I still watched her all the time, hoping against hope she would improve.

That was foolish of me, and selfish. But I cannot regret allowing us both that extra time.

Still, she had not eaten, that we had seen, for two days.

She had not taken the thirsty water.

*

That morning, when she had walked past the corner of the house, she turned back, and she staggered hard. She stopped and called loudly, a moan. Over all the years, Little Bit spoke very seldom, and always quietly.

I was sitting in my small metal rocking chair nearby, only watching. I could not move. There was nothing I could do but hope, even when that was not enough.

Her mamá, much stronger than I, was standing near her. I asked her to "Give me the baby, please." I could barely get the words to pass my lips.

She picked up Little Bit and placed her in my arms, one of Bit's very favorite places to be.

Her head was bowed, her face buried in my elbow.

My own head bowed, I watched her, begging silently No, and I told her aloud again and again through the tears streaming over my lips how very much I loved her.

Her little song played in my mind.

And just before 10 a.m. on April 11, 2023, for what I realized a moment later was the last time, the baby raised her head. For twelve years she had raised her head so I could kiss her between her ears, and I always did, day or night.

But this one time I did not.

Grief stricken, I forgot. It is not an excuse, but a fact and a deeply intrenched regret.

She reached with her little hands and those long, graceful fingers to knead my right elbow, first with her right hand, then her left, then her right again.

And then her little head bowed again and her breath left and she died.

There are also gentler and seemingly less terminal ways to say that, but “died” is the truth of it.

She was torn from me, torn from my heart, and I damn whatever or whomever was the cause, even myself.

*

I wish I had not worn my jacket on that cool morning. I wish she had left scars for me to kiss.

I still believe she kneaded my elbow to show me how much she loved me. How much she wanted to hang onto me. How very much she hated to have to leave.

I cannot allow myself to believe she was begging me to save her. It is too much. It was not within my power.

*

If I had her back — if I could have known before she was gone what grief truly is — I would spend every waking moment with her or watching her, marveling at all that she was and all that she taught me.

The thought is not original to me. Many others have experienced the ultimate grief and expressed it in better ways, but it is no less true.

I would have lived for her, through her, as humans who are close have every day to live for and through each other and never do.

My grief and the ensuing sadness are ever-present and ever-pervasive.

Of course, there are good memories — wonderful memories — but as a wise friend wrote to me in my grief, "every joyful memory is shadowed with raw mourning."

That is true now, almost nine months after my child was taken from me, and it will still be true in ninety months or nine-hundred months, and I do not care. I would much rather grieve and mourn her alongside those wonderful memories than not to have known her at all.

She was my strength, my heart and my heartbeat, and I will miss her for the remainder of my portion of forever. Even as she walks alongside me.

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About the Author

Gervasio Arrancado was born in a small shack in Mexico and raised in the orphanage at Agua Idelfonso, several kilometers, give or take a few, from the fictional fishing village of Agua Rocosa.

Gervasio is fortunate to have made the acquaintance of Augustus McCrae, Hub and Garth McCann, El Mariachi, Forest Gump, The Bride (Black Mamba), Agents J and K, Juan-Carlos Salazár, Maldito, a very old man with enormous wings, the chupacabra and several other notables.

He visits regularly with his friend Nick Porter, whom he fondly calls Paco (nobody knows why, but we’re all certain he has his reasons), and with Juan-Carlos Salazár, whom he calls his colaborador in all things literary.

To this day Gervasio lives and writes at that place on the horizon where reality folds into imagination.

To read an interview with Gervasio, please Click Here.)