So I saw Momma, when she thought I wasn’t watching…windexing RIP Daddy’s humongous photo glass and frame…and she was grumbling at him…that he never comes around anymore…never whispers in her ear… like what’s with that….when did he get to step out of her dreams, whether she is awake or asleep? Who makes the rules, sets the timelines….tell us who?
Now Momma realizes when RIP Daddy first passed, he was worried that she would not be able to handle the mundane. What Momma knew about furnaces, contractors, cars or house hold repairs could have been written on the inside of a thimble…a very small thimble…how to get her up to speed with him inHeaven and her still firmly tethered toEarth was a conundrum.
Momma supposes that once you get to Heaven you have so much time to separate from those you left behind before you get appointed your full-time Help the World Become A Better Place Position. After all, there was more than Momma needed assistance….wasn’t she from the generation of ‘Bring Home the Bacon, Fry It Up in A Pan?’ No pain, no gain.Up and at it.No time for shrinking violets.
RIP Daddy did keep a close eye at first, bursting through with his knowledge and advice but then, over the years and tears, he noticed…..Momma had got the hang of it….somehow. It took a lot of Prayers (and Googling) but she made steady, if questionable progress and so the time arrived for RIP Daddy to Let Go and Let God.
After all, RIP Daddy had a mission that only he could complete, said his personal Guardian Angels….which would never occur unless RIP Daddy accepted his present location….recognized his Heavenly Assignment as he waited for Momma to complete her Journey and join him, In the Sky Lord, In the Sky.
Our Itty Bitty on the Earth Plane
Another reason for RIP Daddy to cut the cord was Itty Bitty… she always wanted to be first…to beat her older brother and sisters… and no one can argue…she won that round fair and square ….even though she was born to be the Baby of the Family and filled that position beyond expectations.
For so long Momma had visited Itty Bitty everyday, hopping on the bed with her – talking – laughing…now that Itty Bitty had taken her flight to her Greater Reward, it was important that even though she was still confused by the abruptness of it all, she must drop by…often…in Momma’s dreams…in thoughts…all day, all night …because, like RIP Daddy, although their passing was inevitable,it still came like a thief in the night…without time to assimilate…contemplate….and tell me how many dead people can a sane person, (even Momma), entertain on the same day?
RIP Daddy & Momma remember when….
Now I, Jakita know…the cats, especially Charlie knows….RIP Daddy actually drops by often but poor Momma hasn’t been blessed with the same awareness…The Two Footed only believe what they see…Sucks to be them…the Four Footed can feel your presence as it permeates our existence….so we implore you RIP Daddy, come on down, make your presence known, give Momma what she wants. Get with the program. Multi-task. Make her believe:
Okay so Momma, we got to talk….I got a system…and truly I’d appreciate (no offense),if you just keep up, okay.
One of my overflowing-need-a-bigger-toy basket.
Let me start by thanking you for having toy boxes in different areas of the house, crammed full of chew bones, balls, stuffed toys and sundry. I am eight years old now…and an Aquarius…I am super organized…Like Your-Sister-Who-Taught You-Most-the Things-You-Know, I am an inventory genius. I know where every item is, FIFO(first–in–first–out) and where I want to keep it…so let sleeping toys lie, already!
It always happens when you are cleaning house…which you do far too often, I’m thinking…I can never get a break, day after day, shuffling from room to room to avoid the chaos you create when the brooms and mops appear and dust gets flying.
And I admit, I am guilty. I take toys out of my box and just drop them willy-nilly, like a Princess with an entourage, to clean up after me. Oh, I am perfect in countless ways but Momma never trained me to pick up my toys every night and put them back in the bins. Blame Momma…again…of course!
Jakita with Babby
No, Momma enabled me, cleaning up after me….so when she recently found Babby on the sun room floor instead of putting him in the bin right there, she took him in to the living room basket. Trained, Momma is, but by who….I ask you??
Well, you know what I had to do. I went right in, dug out Babby and plunked right where I had left him in the middle of the sun room floor. If I wanted Babby somewhere else, I’d put him somewhere else…Got that Momma?Tiggerstays on Wonder Boy’s bed so I can sleep with him all night, Pink Fluffy Bunny has a corner by the pillow on the couch in the living room so I can rest on him during the day and Babby is my sun room solace… along with whatever else I feel like playing with at any given time… on any given day.
Are ya listening Momma???
Truly it’s not so difficult to follow….but we all know Momma is highly contrary and marches to the beat of a drummer only she can hear….my advice…to paraphrase Pinkwould be:
You gotta show up and try, and try, Gotta show up and try, and try….
Smile and the world smiles with you….Frown and you bring me down….
It only takes a smile from you… To make me feel complete…. It only takes a frown from you…To make me feel defeat…
So I won’t tell if you won’t tell… The secret’s ours to keep…. Just need me…like I need you…Dreamofme…..whenyou sleep…….
Dance, dance wherever you may be….League of Nations Cheer! Included born in Italy, Greece, England, Canada, Holland, India and pic to the right also, Vietnam.
Please…when you are carving my epitaph on cold black marble slab, let it read…
I try so hard….
‘He tried so hard to show them all that he wasn’t always mean….. Yet they all thought each thing he did was just some evil scheme….’ (Paraphrase Hank Williams)
Because….really, I always mean well…
Every cat is born a helpless little kitty, dependent on Mama Cat to sustain life and order …which gets tricky…when you are born a feral….with no cushy baskets to sleep in… no water dishes or dry or wet food, set up in separate stations to prevent the Dominantfrom taking and taking and taking from the Submissive…..
Iknew, I just knew, I had to survive because I had a purpose in life…I would be someone, somewhere, even if I was clueless about backing down when the stakes were high….but hey, I am The Brainiac,not some Risk Management Director, placing my bets, considering the odds.
We were so much younger then….Beau, Gen and Andy
It wasn’t long (like I was 3.5 weeks old) when ‘DestinyisAll’ kicked in and our Momma swooped myself, (Bad Boy Andy), Sister Diva Calico Gen and Brother Muscle Cat Beauregard from a life of utter noisy chaos and destructionat a Tier One Auto Manufacturing Plant and took us to an UrbanSuburbanLife…wellParadise, …actually. One little catch….there were three Senior Cats, all female (also feral), who lived there, rescues as well and like Shania Twain…. ‘That don’t impress me much.’
Job #1….eat, eat, eat…outsize, outrank the Senior Cats….show them Tom Cats (The Muscle Cat Beau and me, Bad Boy Andy) rule, and outrank so…move over…. there is some New Sheriffs in town….oh, and Diva Calico Gen, being our sibling ranked before the Seniors because…blood’s thicker than water, so, well, we had her back. All of this jockeying for position caused a lot of snarling and chasing, ripping around but we were not going anywhere…but then, neither were the Senior Cats…..
Beau Beau
I was much sneakier (I am the Brainiac) then Beau, so would avoid confrontations indoors (Momma and Wonder Boy are so judgemental – no sense of one up man ship at all)…but not Beau, who would find himself ejected in to the cold snowy nights to cool down.
As years pile on, only Sweet Diva Calico Gen and myself are left….and one Senior Cat, Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte and like two old rams, we still lock horns…she has me permanently barred from Momma’s bedroom…something to do with my bad behaviour…no doubt….
Jakita and Andy….eye roll time…
Still the living room is fair game…I see Momma in that ratty old sweater, I hop up for a suckle and a kneading session….and I spend countless hours grooming the Ultimate Earth Dog Jakita. Even if she is so strict about discipline, still she is as patient as a saint….but I have seen her rolling her eyes when I groom on and on….
So I am hoping, paw toes crossedthat when I take my blue ICloud to Heaven, some of my more savory, caring moments will be put on the scale and that they will outweigh the torment I dished out because…honestly, I was only being a Tom Cat
Come to think of it…I am a Catholic. I’ll go to confession…Say my Hail Mary’s…Get my Last Rites…I’m in…Well, maybe Cat-O-Lic Purgatory for a while….Just glad I’m not one of those WASP (White Ango-Saxon Protestants),,,,like Momma….no hope for them!
It would seem (according to Momma, who has been accused of stretching the truth just to enliven the story), that every country village had a Mad As AHatter Harriet Damsel…going forward we will just call her MAAHHD.
So if you’re cursed with being a city slickerand was just passing through our town, you probably really want to know how to recognize MAAHHD. It was not like she was radio-active, killing off your healthy cells as she fixed her steely gaze upon you. You couldn’t call her obnoxious, not even passive aggressive. No, she was just, how to put it…other worldly.
Hats, Hats Homemade Hats
You see MAAHHD wore hats, everycolor, every size, homemade hats no doubt,made at the kitchen table, by the light of the kerosene oil lamp , while she was clearly under the influence of wobbly juice or dandelion wine, depending on the season.
Baby Bonnet
When you saw her on the street in her pinkand blue hat, you knew she was on the way to welcome the most recent born member of the community. Then she had the Easter Bonnet, all flowers and bird nests, the Christmas Jingle bell Tuque-Hat affair to keep her ears warm….and many more…
Kentucky Derby Hat
Like the Kentucky Derby Hat, the Queen Victoria Birthday Hat, the Canada Day Flag Hat…but there was one hat, her favourite…. worn the most often….the Bereavement Hat.
I don’t know if you ever have seen a Bereavement Hat (least not one put together by MAAHHD). It was dark black felt, a little netting to cover her left eye (or was it the right?)with one long various shades of grey‘I surrender’ seagull feather.… oh, and just to add some joy, a satin white and red rosette with matching ribbon.
Behind MAAHHD‘s back (and even to her face….sometimes…) we said it reminded us of a skunk…no wait, life …with dark forces being slayed by a simple splash of color…but no worries…if it worked forMAAHHD, it worked for us.
When we saw MAAHHD going down the sidewalk, wearing the Bereavement Hat, heading to the Funeral Parlour, we scratch our heads and ask, ‘Who died?’, because MAAHHD paid her respects,regardless if she knew the person, the family or even a friend of the deceased. MAAHHD had the ample opportunity to sit piously through visitation of all the dead, English and French since we lived in a Franglais (French–English) town. Still, our French friends would come out, shaking their heads, ‘Sacre Cœur, qui est-ce?’ …roughly translated, ‘Who the heck is that?’ they’d ask? ‘Welcome to MAAHHD’s World,MAAHHD’s World,’ we’d say…..long before that other Mad Canadian coined the Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World jingle.
MAAHHD always took a seat in the same chair, respectfully far from the actual mourners. It got to a point that her presence was so accepted, if some outsider, sat on her chair, one of the town folk would shoe the errant individual away … because small towns have those rules and regulations, written in indelible ink, passed down through the generations and they have no problem passing them on to the ignorant Come–From–Aways.
Now that begs the question…so who all attended MAAHHD’s visitations? No surprise….everyone for miles around turned out, Frenchand English alike, to show her the respect that she had shown their loved ones. The line of mourners, exchanging MAAHHD stories in French and English, stretched from the main boulevard, down a couple of side streets, to the funeral home door, down the hall, into the viewing room, up to the shiny, varnished casket where MAAHHDRested-In-Peace..
Bereavement Hat…
To further show honor and recognition for her past commitment, her empty chair was moved up, right beside the coffin…with her Bereavement Hat in the middle of the seat, just in case MAAHHD decided to climb out and sit piously, with her hat on, one last time.
Rumor has it MAAHHD has a distant cousin (or is it a great-niece) moving to town to continue the family tradition… so fingers crossed. It is said all the Cousin (or Great Niece) inherited was hats…Mad As AHatter Harriet Damsel Hats… a lot of them… so don’t be spooked if you one day see MAAHHD’s hats, back in action…it is not a ghost…it is just an inheritance…..
She wore a…Raspberry beret…The kind you find in a second-hand store..(Thank you Prince. Rest In Peace)
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