our cat

The email I got from my brother David regarding our old cat Mozart:

Sad Mozart news: this past Saturday evening he decided to make the move from Alexandria, VA over to Kitty Heaven.  He was an incredible 20 ½ years old and lived a very full life right up until his passing.  We decided to bury him at home in his favorite sunbeam spot outside the house next to the chimney and driveway along with his favorite food bowl and a can of his favorite food... I’m sure he’s living it up wherever he’s at right now.

I admit I was something of a cat-hater before I met Mozart. We'd had two cats before him. Patches, a pure white angora, was arrogant and mean, pretty much confirming my opinion of cats. He disappeared one day and no one lost sleep over him. Whiskers, our second family cat, had a more pleasant personality but was incredibly stupid for a cat. He, too, ended up disappearing; we suspect he got run over, whereas Patches, who had more common sense, probably just ran away.

Then along came Mozart, a beautiful long-hair, covered in gray fur but with white "socks" on his feet and other white patches on his face and elsewhere. He was dubbed Mozart for his musical kitten-meow.

Mozart was a "people" cat; he loved hanging around the family and could often be heard purring. He was also an amazing hunter throughout his life, dragging home bird and rabbit carcasses to show us his skill. I took a great liking to this cat right from the outset.

Mozart lived most of his life with one eye; in his youth, he got into a fight with a neighborhood cat and received a claw to the cornea. The eye was removed at the cat hospital, along with Mozart's family jewels. "We did both ends," the vet told us. Life was hilarious for a time as Mozart prowled the house in his ridiculous plastic collar, head half-shaved and eye socket filled with stitches. But you can't keep a good hunter down, and Mozart was soon back to slaughtering the local wildlife. Once, he even chased a large dog off our property.

A few years later, Mozart went missing for two or three weeks. Our entire family was depressed. Losing him was different from losing Patches or Whiskers: Mozart had the sort of personality that filled the house, and you noticed when he was gone.

Like any Hollywood celebrity, the cat went through fat and skinny stages, becoming shockingly thin toward the end of his life. The past couple of years, while I was in Korea, there was a sort of death watch going on in northern Virginia; Mozart was finally starting to look old. His one eye was clouding over, his fur was less lustrous, and one by one, his fangs began dropping out. Not that this latter issue presented much of a problem: Mozart had always been a fan of those high-rent canned cat foods, which are soft enough to be gummed by a toothless codger.

When I'd visited home a summer or two ago, I'd already received a few emails about the cat's decline, so when I arrived in NoVA I was expecting to see a cat who looked like a revenant from Stephen King's Pet Sematary. As it turned out, Mozart looked thin but healthy as a horse.

But as often happens to older mammals throughout the animal kingdom, old Mozart's true decline was steep and sudden, and I regret not being home to see it and help out. Mozart had indeed lived a full and, I hope, happy life, housed with a loving family. We might say he has now returned to the Great Cycle, but... when did he ever leave it?

One last, fond scratch between the ears for you, Kitty. You helped me to see that not all cats are bad.


_