Our beautiful gray tortoiseshell cat Mimi died November 13th, and the only thing mysterious about her demise was how well she hid the fact that she had at least three life-threatening conditions while continuing to eat, listen to music, play with her catnip mouse, all the things she liked to do.
We put her body in a plastic box and buried her up in the corner of the yard I like to watch when I am pondering. We put all her toys in the grave as if she were a pharaoh and might need them. We tossed her comb and food dish and scattered her kibble in the back yard, where the neighbor’s dog promptly scarfed it up, looking about furtively for the huge cat which once chased him away.
I had one dream of her, a silent dream, where Mimi was running up the driveway, south, as fast as she could go.
The mystery is what became of all the cat hair. She had a luxurious coat which shed everywhere, floated in the air, worked its way into the carpet, stuck to the stove, adorned all our clothing, collected in the corners behind the furniture. The day after we buried her, all the cat hair mysteriously disappeared. I thought I would use her brush for my hair as a kind of legacy from her, but when I washed the brush, only lint came out; no cat hair. Our black clothing, once richly enhanced with pale gray fur, no longer had a single trace of cat hair.
Some of this might be explained by the heavy-duty air filter on the furnace, at least the floating and pooling hair bits. But what could get the hair off our fleeces, coats and sweaters when energetic efforts with brushes, vacuums and sticky tape would never quite do it?
Nicodemus says she took it all with her.
(Smiling Mimi card by Christine and Jordan Hosfeldt)
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