Mortey died August 17, 2000 a few minutes after 10 am.
An Obituary and Memorial for Mortey - pg 2
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Mortey made friends at the Vet's apparently, charming them as they put him through some rather obnoxious procedures - including the exploratory surgery that confirmed he had a malignant mass on his pancreas and thus no longer would have a functioning digestive system.
We brought him home from the Vet's on the 16th, prepared to play deathbed nursemaid to him during the doctors' ominous pronouncement that he had about a month to live. We knew Mortey was peculiar - we would not have been surprised had he defied the prediction and outlasted that prognostication.
But this was not to be. Mortey took the other route. Why wait? He seemed happy to be at home - weak from the recent surgery and Vet adventure - but happy to be at home. Once settled, though, he seemed to decide it was then time to start dying.
I will spare you the long story of the night spent attending his dying, except to give you the final moment. As Laszlo and I both held him in our laps and arms, Mortey arched his body in one final spasm and literally threw up his life force onto Laszlo and myself. It took us a second (after we reacted with an involuntary "ewww" at the cat humour spit upon us) to realize that had been it -- the final thing. And somehow -- Mortey throwing up as his last parting gesture was altogether way too fitting.
It was eerily beautiful.
The 3-inch Mourning Wreath we nailed to our front door.
Later that morning, I emailed a death notice to a few friends who I thought would want to know what had happened. Not long after I had sent it out, I received from Steve an offer of his backyard as a burial place -- as Steve already had two cats (Rose and Evander) buried there.
We gratefully took him up on this offer and set about trying to figure out what to put Mortey in. We used this box that Mortey used to like to sleep on. Laszlo slipped a picture of Mortey into the "Packing List Enclosed" window leftover from when the box had been delivered to us sometime before with something else in it.
I declared it a modern version of Graeco-Egyptian funeral portrait.
Laszlo later noted (after getting the photos back) that the printing leftover on the box from when it had been used to ship something said "2 of 2." This he interpreted as meaning we've had 2 of 2 cats die in recent years. As it did not say, 2 of 3, he says that means Alecto will be around for a long time to come.
Sounds good to me.
Laszlo and Steve playing gravedigger.
Preparing the box for internment.
Afterwards, watering the part of the backyard that is becoming "Steve's Backyard of the Dead Cats."®
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