bear aka the bear-bear aka little bear-rito

One week ago our cat Bear passed away. She was 16 years old, so we knew it was coming, but it is still so painful to lose a pet. My husband, Joe, had Bear since she was a kitten, which has been about half of Joe's life. We have been together for 6 1/2 years so I knew her for that long. I wanted to do something to remember her and thought showing portraits of her would be fitting.


Bear had a tremendous amount of personality. She always came when you called her name. She walked around with attitude, knowing that she owned the house. She would stalk the dogs and pretend like we couldn't see her crawling along the floor. She and our collie Edison would chase each other back and forth around the living room.

She loved people in general, and always wanted to sit on laps, particularly the laps of those wearing denim.

But she loved Joe the most.




When Joe and I first started dating Bear would stare at me with a look of disdain while I was at the house. I swear she was saying "I have seen girls in your place before, but I have always outlasted them. Why don't you just leave now!" Joe was HERS and she was not about to give him up. She would even randomly bite me (gently) or scratch me, and I have a few scars to prove it. The closest portraits I have to Bear's look are these two:




Joe has always said Bear and I make the same faces when we are fussy...so I guess that is what I look like too when I'm not getting what I want.

After this rough introduction to Bear you would think perhaps I wouldn't care for her, but the darn thing grew on me, just as I grew on her. At first she started to cuddle with me when Joe wasn't around. The funny thing was as soon as he showed up she would jump off my lap, run away and pretend she was never there. Slowly, she realized I would be around for the long haul and sat with me even with Joe around, though she always preferred his lap. For my part, I started to want to have her on my lap while I sat at the computer and worked, and liked messing with her on the couch, rolling her around my lap and rubbing her belly.

Back in college, before I knew him, Joe used to have movie nights at his house. His group of friends would get together, turn down all the lights, have some popcorn and drinks and watch a good (or bad) movie. Bear loved the taste and texture of hair gel and hairspray, so she would creep along the very wide back of the couch and at the crux of a movie jump on some one's head to munch on their hair, scaring them half to death.



My favorite story about Bear is one that I think is fairly amazing. Bear was an indoor cat, but occasionally if we left the screen door open she would sneak out to play. Typically once we realized she was out there were only a couple places we had to look to find her around the outside of the house. Or, when she was done she would sit by the back door and wait to be let in. However one night Bear simply disappeared. She got out while we were making dinner, grilling something on the deck, and when bedtime rolled around we still couldn't find her. So, we went to bed...

"Ding dong ding dong" - the doorbell rang. Joe and I sat up straight in bed. It was after two in the morning. I looked at him and whispered "did you just hear the doorbell ring?" He quietly got up, went out to the front door and looked through the peephole trying to see who was out there. There was no one there. He opened the door, and Bear was sitting on the brick ridge right next to the doorbell! Somehow, the crazy cat had rubbed against the house in the exact right place and rang the doorbell to be let in. Whether this was coincidental or purposeful, it was still amazing!



I am lucky enough to have taken all of these images of her about a year and a half ago. I had just purchased a new Lensbaby lens and wanted to test it out. Since the animals were readily available, I took that opportunity to shoot portraits of them, and I'm glad I did.

Bear-Bear, you are missed.