Few of you will understand this poem and fewer still will "Get IT" It is not really meant for anyone but close family to understand. Yet I must put it in context and tell you why I am posting it.
My mother's cat was called "Lucky" a vicious tortoiseshell monster of a cat it was, it scratched and bit everyone who came near apart from my mother. who loved the cat and I think the cat (as much as cats can) cared for her. My father's name was Neil, He died twenty odd years ago and after he passed away my mother's love passed not to her children but to the demented vicious cat, Lucky.
Sadly, my mother passed away last week and so remembering her I thought to compose a poem about her. I did not wish it to be solemn but at the same time I did not wish to make light of her passing.
So, I came up with "That Damn Cat"
This is a picture of my mother and father getting married back in 1959.
and so, onto the poem. now that you have some context.
That Damn Cat.
Always there, part of the furniture, rarely out in the chilly air.
Frightened of bees and wasps and felines lost.
Cooking and cleaning, keeping house but always the one to care
What happened at school, in life, who would you have as wife?
Would she approve, would they be too pretty or too fat
She did not care; she would rather have a cat.
Remember “lucky”, her cat, vicious and bold,
We tried to tell her, but she would never be told.
That cat is the spawn of hell, she will drive you mad
She simply replied I love her as much as I did your dad.
Instead, she and the cat grew old, Together,
Together forever, forever that was her deal,
The cat she loved but she would have rather had Neil.
She loved him until her mind started to go,
she rarely visited the grave where she had to go,
But she remembered him with fondness and would say
She would go and lie with him again one day.
And on this day, they will meet again, be together once more
Walk that golden shore, feeling a scented summer breeze.
And my dad would say, “Is it too late to get to the bookies”
You never know what to say about your mother.
Upside: she is not your father, downside too.
Neil and I loved them both, Myra too, and to say farewell
it is as hard a thing as any of us has had to do.
So instead, we say farewell, we will see our dad and mum
on the other side of that. But hopefully not that damn cat.
