Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Six

Comforting Cat

An old country song goes, “I remember the year that Clayton Delaney died”. I remember not only the year, but the date and month that Frank Mincey died.

My father passed away on Friday morning, February 26, 1982, two days after his sixty-eighth birthday, ending an almost three year battle with cancer. He passed away in my half-sister Ruby Mincey Foulks’ house at 4722 Mildred Drive, Knoxville, in the back corner bedroom that belonged to Ruby’s son Mark. I always wondered if Mark ever felt strange about ending his high school years in the bedroom in which someone died.

Of all things I remember about that day, the most comforting for me was when my sister-in-law, Jewell Gay, wrapped me from behind in one of her strong arms while I watched the deathbed. Though I knew my father was terminally ill and destined to die from the cancer that had spread throughout his body, it was still a great shock when he finally passed away.

The circumstances surrounding my mother’s death, though more recent, are not as solidly fixed in my mind. Mother suffered from diabetes for several years, and it was possibly complications from that disease that caused her gall bladder to die and rot inside her. Its removal came too late to prevent the infection that spread throughout her body.

I retained hope that she would recover, but on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 the doctor pulled me and her other two children aside to tell us that if we had anything to say we’d better say it. Some people wonder what the worst day of their life was or will be, but thus far my worst day on earth was the day I had to tell my mother that she wasn’t going to get better. My normal tendency to handle all news with little emotion failed me, and I cried as I never cried before or since. I begged her to forgive me for anything I had ever done to fail her as a son, and she graciously did.

It just happened that my dear friends Pam and Rick Shoffner were visiting the hospital at that time, and I remember Pam wrapping me from behind in her strong arms, just as my sister-in-law had done twenty-two years earlier.

Strangely, after my outpouring of grief Mother seemed to rally. I sat beside her bedside all night, expecting each breath to be her last. The next morning, she seemed better. I said, “Mother, I’m glad you’re still with us.” Her voice was raspy and low, but she replied, “Me, too.”

Several times I’ve heard an old saying that a person has to get better to die. In Mother’s case this was true—she quietly slipped away in the 3:00 a.m. hour of Saturday, June 26, 2004. There was a time I could have told you the exact time (I think it was 3:33 a.m.). I remember the room in which my mother died but not the number, though I can walk you to the exact room in the old St. Mary’s Hospital on Oak Hill Avenue.

I was not actually in the room when either of my parents died. I remember E. J. Ailor II himself coming to pick up Dad after he passed, and it was E. J. Smith who came to the hospital to get Mother.

My mother’s last cat of the many she had during her time on Earth was a beautiful gray animal that neighbor Carol Lee Simmons said was a Russian blue. I suspect that someone gave her to Mother, though I was told she “just came here”. She, like all our other cats, was both an indoor and outdoor cat. Mother named her Baby, and how they loved each other. Baby slept each night on Mother’s pillow, right next to the top of her head.

When Mother went to the hospital and left her home for the final time on Saturday, May 29, 2004, Baby was on her own. I would see her and feed her on my occasional trips to the house, which became more infrequent as Mother’s death neared. It saddens me to this day that the first thing I saw as I pulled in the driveway on the day Mother passed was Baby, patiently waiting for her mistress who would never return. I was sure Baby had long departed. I picked up the faithful creature and cried again at the love the animal had for her friend who would not return, more love than Mother had known from most people in her life.

I kept Baby safely in the basement throughout the funeral. My neighbor Carol Lee’s cat had just died, so I gave Baby to her so Baby could comfort again as she had in the past. Carol Lee loved Baby, and until Baby’s last days she was an indoor cat. Carol Lee enjoyed Baby for a few years until the cat became ill. I’ve heard Carol Lee spent over $2,000 on the animal, but she died. I’ve been told that Carol Lee had Baby cremated and kept her ashes in her dining room cabinet.

Internet tells me that this Superbowl Sunday of 2018 is exactly 5,000 days since my mother’s death. Sadly, Carol Lee Simmons and Rick and Pam Shoffner have also met their eternal destinies; even so, they live in my heart and mind just as if I’d seen them a few minutes ago. Through their testimonies, I know one day soon I shall see them again.

Mother and Dad,
And Rick and Pam,
Closely followed by Baby
And Carol Lee.

You’ve heard of people going to the dogs after their parents die. Next week I will share a confessional of how I went to the cats!