Baby Bandit (AKA Fluffer) 2014-2022
One Remarkable Kitty. . .
When I first met Baby Bandit he was a shy kitty and hid from me. Another kitty from the shelter jumped on my back, he was not so shy. I took both of them. Baby Bandit & Jeffrey.
These were two silly kitties and I was still living in a small apartment and driving a tiny convertible. It was fun but the apartment and the Silicon Valley lifestyle got old. Soon I was to give up that apartment and convertible, to go live in a van in the work parking lot. Bandit was the kitty I chose to take with me on this newfound voyage through life. Jeffrey went to my ex-girlfriend.
At first I don't think he liked living in the van. At least at some point during the first few weeks he had diarrhea all over me in bed and I had to throw away my comforter and wash us both in a public bathroom. We were both miserable at first.
Once we got the swing of it, and I found a plenty of parks for him to run around in, we were all set. After a short time I trusted him to leave our camper all the time and he would hop in and out through the front window whenever he needed to. Bayshore Park was our number one spot and we would walk along the beach together watching the ocean and sunsets. Man and kitty. Kitty and man.
We went all up and down the Western seaboard together. Into the deserts of Mojave and Joshua tree. Up to Washington state and Oregon, up to the Canadian border. All over the hot springs from Bridgeport to Kingston Nevada. Del Puerto Canyon on the backside of Mount Hamilton was our go to. We did this almost every day, at least other than the two days a week I had to be in an office in Silicon Valley.
We did this for a few years Bandit and I. Little did we know that it was about to end. I was about to lose my job. My employer, Gibson Guitars was going bankrupt. My last task was to tell the entire R&D department they had a few months to find a new job.
During our journeys we had met this girl Bandit and I. Jennifer. He fell in love with the kitty next door, Cici. I fell in love with her.
We soon bought fifteen acres of bare land together and we moved there in our camper, Jennifer and I and our best-friend Baby Bandit. About a year later all of the goats we had bought & started to rent out for grazing were pregnant, and Jennifer was pregnant too. Bandit sat by her side every step of the way, as he always did. And when we had our second kid, Bandit had already proven himself to be a gentle babysitter kitty. He always was the best in all situations, other than that one time with the diarrhea.
Bandit got sick last week. Our two children got sick too, which meant no more trips to the grandparents, so we were on double-duty. The heat of the summer rolled in and our well got low and we had to go fetch water every day to fill our water tank. We have 50 goat kids we are starting to wean. In other words like most farmers, we are busy all the time. Something had to give.
We were going to give Bandit some antibiotics Sunday, because he was not seeming to get any better the last few days. Saturday night we held him in our arms tightly and we could feel the life slowly leave him. His eyes rolled back and we knew he was gone. We buried him in a special nook overlooking the valley. It feels like just yesterday he was still going on long walks with us. We were so glad we cuddled with him the other night, his last night in our bed with us.
Bandit had an everlasting destiny like no other kitty I had ever seen. Like the few timeless humans we rarely meet here on Earth, that we cherish to meet again in the Heavens.
Heaven needed Fluffer it was his time to entertain the angels.
I wasn't always there for Fluffer, but he was always there for me. And so that's what he taught me. To take some time to always be there for each other. Technology is speeding up human time and so we need to put it down and we need to take the time to hang out with our fellow man and our fellow creatures. Take the time to smell the roses and the tar-weeds in the pastures. Cherish every life we have here on Earth because we never know when we'll be seeing them again anytime soon.
RIP Baby Bandit (Aka Fluffer) we'll see you when we get there buddy.
