Dogs of the North The Pack Mordecai

In Memoriam He climbed through a hole in the screen one day, strolled across the porch and landed in my lap where he plopped himself down, took a casual bath, and napped the afternoon away. He never left. A big, blue-gray tomcat with extra toes on each front foot, he moved in as effortlessly as if he had lived with me all his life. Quickly befriending the two cats already in the house, he expressed a particular affinity for the dogs. I think he may have fancied himself a special breed of dog, who retained his cat-like qualities when they suited him. He loved humans even more than dogs, I think. When picked up, he would wrap his front arms around ones neck and hug, licking one's face softly and cuddling against ones neck. Mordecai was incredibly laid back. Nothing seemed to phase him, except a trip to the vet. He hated that. I remember one time when we lived in Philadelphia and I took him to the clinic with an eye infection. When the doctor tried to administer a few harmless eye drops he was met with a yowling, growling, mass of fur. After clawing the vet across the forearm, he started after me. Neither of us could get near what was in any other setting, place, or time an extraordinarily docile and easy going cat. I suppose that Mordy laughed to his dying day at the trick he pulled on us that afternoon. For when the teenage kennel-hand happened to walk past on her way to clean the hospital cages, Mordy smiled and purred and rubbed his face against her wrist while she, unaware of the drama past, casually put the medicine in his infected eye. He was a character. He had character. Although, to be honest, he wasn't always necessarily easy to live with. Mordy had a horrible habit of laying across my face to sleep at night. I would wake up in a panic with a mouth full of cat hair as I tried to tell him to get off. And he wouldn't softly curl up to sleep on my head. He would stand beside me as if gauging the trajectory of his fall and then plunk himself down in a single motion across my face. All in all, though, he was terrific, and by far the most affectionate feline I have ever known. I soon discovered that Mordy was happiest while socializing. I suppose that in his seventeen years of life, he must have made well over a thousand visits to friends, and more importantly, to homebound or institutionalized members of my congregation. I recall a lovely lady in her nineties who, when exiting the sanctuary each Sunday morning when grasp my hand and say, "Tell me, Pastor, how's my friend, Mordecai?" In nursing homes, he would stroll across the room and hop up on a patient's bed and purr to be petted, gently rubbing that big gray head of his against the hand or shoulder of his host, as if thanking them for the privilege of visiting. In a private home, he headed for an empty chair if we talked in the kitchen, or sat himself beside his new friend on their couch. Once, about a year after I "retired" him due to old age and illness, he comforted two little girls as they waited in the veterinarian's office for their mom and the doctor to lead their beloved pet to his final rest. They cried in his fur and hugged him and told him all about their "Tabby" and what a great cat he was, and how much they would miss him. When it was Mordy's time to be seen by the other doctor in the clinic, she recognized immediately what he was about, and said, "Mordecai is working right now. We'll see him in a little bit." He died on Good Friday. I was lucky to have a good half hour or so alone with him before the doctor came to ease his pain a final time. I held him against my shoulder and cried in his fur while he wrapped his paws about my neck and kissed the tears from my face. He was purring. I think he was happy to be doing the thing for which he had lived his long life; easing the pain of humans and reminding them of the love and peace that passes our human understanding, and points us to the grace and eternal goodness of God. Holy Saturday, and Easter morning have come and gone as I write this, but the promise of resurrection remains and the knowledge of the God who loves and nourishes all creation. Rest in peace, dear friend, and thank you.

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