In MeMOriam

We’ve had a lot of Facebook posts recently about the new canine addition to our little family, which is great. Now, however, I would like to take a moment to tell part of the story of another member of the clan, a cat. This feline’s name was Geronimo, but to most who knew him, he was just “Mo.”  The way he came by his appellation is a story in itself, but one I will let others tell; I know it only third hand, and those who knew him at that time may wish to do so.

Mo was, at least in part, a “Maine Coon” type of cat, with long hair that fell around his face a bit like a lion’s mane, and tufts of hair between his toes. He also had one of the loudest voices I’ve heard in an animal of his size. He could, and would, come down to the bedroom, stand on the floor and meow loudly enough to wake us when he felt it was time to eat.

Those of you lucky enough to have lived with cats know that they each tend to have a different “personality,” for lack of a less human-centered word. The best way I would explain Mo’s personality is to use a cinematic metaphor.  Mo was, in my opinion, the blend of two classic movie characters; one an archetype, the other a specific character. If anyone is familiar with old films set in WWII, there is often the grizzled old sergeant who acts tough and gruff and berates the new soldiers constantly. He has been shot 43 times, but hasn’t died yet, and the young troops whisper about his immortality. Of course, there is invariably a scene when we discover that the sergeant has the proverbial “heart of gold,” and is tough on the men because he cares about them and wants them to survive. Usually, he gets killed saving his men the day before the war ends.

To me, this fits Mo completely. I only knew Mo in his older days, and he looked, and sounded, a bit like that crotchety old sergeant. Plus, for the longest time, he refused to die. He was thin as a rail, yet ate like a horse. He often moved like some furry automaton, stiffly, but with resolve. We are unsure of his exact age, but I am fairly certain his first job was guarding King Tut’s bedroom. There were multiple occasions on which we went on “Mo death watch,” figuring that, since he was acting a bit sick or listless one day, it was his time. Yet every time, after a day or so, he’d be back to his crusty old self, yowling for his food, and to be let out in the back yard for 5 minutes, before he tired of it and came in. He was often referred to in our house as “Miracle Mo.”

The second character of which Mo reminded me was “The Dude.” If you don’t know The Dude, Google “The Big Lebowski.” As gruff as Mo seemed, at least when I knew him, he pretty much let any chaos going on around him go unacknowledged. Parties, flooding, dogs, it didn’t matter. Mo was just Mo through it all, and I often found myself commenting, whenever something happened through which he remained stoic, that “The Mo abides…”

Mo came to live with us at a time when we had recently lost our faithful dog Rowan. We already had another cat, Bitty, whom we still love very much, but Mo brought to us a new challenge that helped us move on after Rowan’s death. He gave us a year and a half of his life that made ours immeasurably better. 

 

Last Friday, the gruff old sergeant finally succumbed to that Stygian fate at which he laughed for so long. He hadn’t been himself for a day or two prior, but, of course, we hoped he had one more miracle in him. Alas, this time, the metaphorical bullet found its mark. But, as I watched him slip away, I knew that for the rest of my life, in my heart, the Mo would abide.