The Dead Cat Story

At the time I met my wife I told her that weird things happened to me and she should be prepared. At the time we started going out my friend Mark was living on the first floor.  Our backyard had recently been reconfigured and we lost one of our cats, Mu, who went missing. With the new backyard, which had a lower fence, the cats were able to come and go as they pleased much to my displeasure. But I felt that to take cats that had been hanging out outside inside, and not let them out again, seemed too cruel.

After Mu left we still had two cats, crazy Fifi who lived in the basement and Dave a maine coon—not the biggest but not the smallest either. Still enveloped in the sadness of losing Mu we were woken one morning by the incredibly stoic Mark, a friend who lived downstairs, entering my apartment to announce that “Dave is dead out on 9th St, in a hurry, gotta go bye.”

Caitlin and I grabbed a towel and took the funeral march down 9th Street to find Dave, a large grey mass with entrails loose, lying in the middle of the street. I placed him gingerly into the towel and we solemnly made our way back home with Dave wrapped and nestled in my arms.

A hole was dug in the backyard and Dave was buried with all due respect and gravity. Caitlin can’t remember but she believes I said a few words before we sat down on the bench to stare at the freshly sown grave.

And then… Dave hopped his new low fence, came ambling into the yard and sat down at our feet looking up at us. I turned to Caitlin and said, “Welcome to my life.”

We buried the wrong cat. On one level it was a deed well done as the poor cat got buried. But another way of looking at it is someone lost their cat and never found out what happened to him. As then, as I mentioned in the last post, Dave moved out not long after this incident.

Life is short and a life well lived is one that is full of stories. I hope you enjoyed this one.

Sunday Morning Music New Year’s Eve Edition: The Kinks