This Month's Story

Stella and I were at the Wooden Boat Festival in Madisonville the other day and besides having a wonderful time, I had a chance to talk with an old friend Dave Stefferud who is on the board of the Lake Ponchartrain Basin Maritime Museum, sponsors of the festival. We didn’t talk about boats though; we swapped stories about cats. I won’t say he beat me on my stories about Holly, but he did tell me one that was pretty much a topper. Here it is.

One day Michael, our son, befriended a cat of the most ordinary appearance and habits. I suppose there are a million or so such cats, but she was alert and had a good disposition. Michael gradually overcame the cat’s shyness as he sat in a chair in our back yard, smoking a cigarette, and before long, she was sitting on his lap. Eventually, she came to sleep on his bed at night. We weren’t supposed to know that, but of course it wouldn’t have made any difference. Michael had a tumor on his brain and he was in the last year of his life.

The cat later came to be called Minou, or sometimes Minette, or similar variants. It might be, but my memory fails me, that “Minou” was a common name for cats in New Orleans.

After Michael died, Minou was welcome to stay. She grew to adulthood and then grew some more. The obvious conclusion to this was that we were about to be rewarded with a litter of more Minous (or Minettes). We called the vet and made arrangements for the procedures a cat needs for her female operation to stop making what would have been an endless flow of Minous. We bought a pet cage, enticed her into it, and transported her to the vet.

The next day the vet called and said, “I don’t think we’ll be operating on your cat today. HE has already had HIS operation and you won’t be troubled with progeny!”

So Minou came home and resumed his tranquil life on the front porch with an occasional foray into the yard. One night he brought home a frog for our inspection at two in the morning, and it got loose in the living room. Lights on. Chasing and catching of frog. Frog out the door. Lights out. Cat asleep but disappointed in us.

Last night, Brett, who lives down the street, called up: “Grandma, your cat got killed on the highway, in front of the Piggly Wiggly store! He’s squashed, in the middle of the street!”

With heavy hearts, Andree and I got a towel and went to get poor Minou. We rigged a lamp on an extension cord and dug a grave in the back yard on the other side of the house by the little pond. Minou was wrapped carefully in his towel and interred. The most comforting thing we could tell ourselves was that God had put Minou here with a mission, and that was to be a comfort to Michael. And that now that Minou’s duty in this life was complete, he had been recalled.

We are in the habit of watching the television from our couch in a room which also affords a view of “cat TV”, the window at which Minou sat to watch the ever-fascinating outside world of frogs, bugs, other cats. The window was the same place he sat when outside to let us know that he wanted to be let in. So that night we resumed our usual postures and habits after the burial but with saddened hearts.

Suddenly, Andree said, “Ohmygod, the cat wants to come in!”. There Minou was, at the window, peering in.

We had buried the wrong cat!