Benny - The "Helpsy Boy" of the new family
Benny was the First to find us after the trying times we faced in the early part of 2019.
I whole-heartedly believe that like his sister Luna, he was carried to us on the winds by our guiding lights and precious babies who traveled before... so that not only would Eggy finally have family again (two weeks somehow at that time in our lives felt like months), but so that we could begin to heal our bruised and battered hearts and souls to continue our difficult but SO important work.
Benny came to us from Cheltenham. He was advertised as a trouble-maker, difficult to handle, too much of a handful and not at all what "they wanted" in a kitten. They'd had him an undesignated time but stated he was only 10 / 11 months old by the time we collected him.
What was in fact his trouble? well we will never know for sure but he had never been held, never felt loved and was untamed/calmed. Within a couple of hours of being with Eggy and Luna (he was dropped off to me then my team went straight to collect luna!) he was rolling around on our laps, playing paperball chase and being a very shy but happy boy.
Aside from the occassional hiss towards Eggy as he had never before seen another cat and was certain she was going to try to eat him (she clearly wasn't, and was infact being so heartwarmingly sweet towards him despite her pains and sadness at that time that it made us teary all the time).... but aside from this ben was very much happy and settled in the cabin with no trouble at all.
It sounds nonsensical to anyone that doesn't know our journey and way of life with the cats past and present - but I grew to believe that he was partly Beany partly Chewie as he showed characteristics of both alongside his own unique "Benism".
Learning that the world wasn't so scary
Benny was very much afraid of his own shadow when he first came to us. Any noise, any light differences and flickerings or anything such as raindrops on the cabin roof and WHOOOSH off he would speed like a silky smokey mist to hide in the base of his cat scratcher tree.
He took a couple of days to warm up to Eggy purely based on the miconception that as she was bigger than him she would be mean towards him. Sad to say but he knew all too well that he wasted precious time with her when less than 10 days later she was gone and he, like ourselves could not bare the empty space she had left in the cabin. To this day (2023) he still looks for her, talks about her in his own way and cherishes her favourite toy, often hugging it when he feels low.
Will add more soon.
(writing this section at 8.18am Friday March 3rd 2023!)
