The Great Otterstotle

I realize that I have been terribly bad at upkeeping this blog, much to the disappointment of my beloved Grandmother down in Miami. A recent event has inspired me to post, and perhaps this may be a turn of events in the greater scheme of my weblog.
A few weeks ago, my family lost one of a pair of cats that has been living with us for the past 15 years. Always the odd couple, Gus and Otter (tabby and black, respectively) have been a focal point of our house all these years. Gus (the still living cat) was always the more outgoing one, a sucker for a rub and quick to make his mark on the person in the room who least likes cats - always the more easily loveable of the two. Otter, on the other hand, had always been shy, aloof, and for a period of time developed a nasty smelly drool whenever he was purring, and sometimes even when he wasn't. Needless to say, it was always a little harder to find room to love Otter. But now that he has passed away, my family has been circulating a rather amusing series of eulogies for Otter via email - pondering on what he did all those years when not in public sight (which was quite often, due to his shyness). I present them to you here, in chronological order.

First, my father's note to us all, informing us of Otter's death:
"Dear all - After nearly 15 years serving as Gus's straight man, Otter has gone where cats go after they've lived nine lives. Mom found him this morning in the drawer under Dena's bed, where he must have crawled for his final nap. Thankfully, Dena had asked us to bring her Duck slippers down when we visit her today, and mom thought to look there. We leave tomorrow for several days, so it was clearly providential. After removing Otter, I buried him in the middle of the small clearing within the ring of bamboo in front of the shed. Ifound a stone to mark the spot."

Secondly, my sister:
"It's strange, but suddenly I feel as if I never reallyknew Otter. I never really appreciated his value as a cat until he was gone. We all made fun of Otter, and were exasperated by him from time to time, but really as pets go he had a lot of good qualities. I've met many cats that were unfriendly, bad-tempered, or even violent. Otter wasn't the most lovable pet, but he wasn't unlovable as cats go - just a loner, shy, and a bit gross sometimes. Don't we all have a bit of Otter inside each of us (that we hide from the world - probably more successfully than Otter did)? The best part about Otter was that when you did show him love and affection, he clearlyappreciated it - like the loner at a party who is embarrassed and pleased when you make an effort to talk to him.
There are my thoughts - and philosophical reflections - on Otter's life. He was a strange cat, but a good pet as pets go."

After my sister's reflection, there was a lull in the conversation for a while, as I didn't quite feel up to reflection just yet, and my brother is currently living in a remote village in Ecuador doing Peace Corps, and can only check his email by traveling an hour to the closest city. I don't actually know how my mom has managed to get off without writing a real reflection this whole time.... I'll have to get on her case about that. At any rate, just tonight I found in my inbox a not from my brother, with his theories on what Otter has really been doing all these years:

" I felt compelled to similarly offer up a few words of remembrance in honor of the cat we all knew as Otter. As Shira remarked, how many of us really knew him well? He was a cat of mystery and intrigue, and I suspect that he lived a secret life that not even Gus was fully informed of. How many of us, really were aware, for example, of his secret door to the outside world, which he concealed in the back of the laundry basket? Or his jet-black Otter-car that he kept parked in the Otter-cave cleverly hidden within the drawers beneath Dena's bed? No, these are the type of details that can only be revealed after one's death. All this time that we thought he was just mildly eccentric and preferred weird sleeping places, he was in fact living a second life of great drama and importance. His smelliness, social awkwardness and loner reputation were simply an inspired Clark Kent disguise. To reinterpret Shira's commentary, yes, how many of us have a little bit of Otter inside? Gross, inept, but a giant amongst cats. A cat with a world vision, and the paws, teeth and jet-black Otter-car to make a difference. For the sake of us all, I pray that we may all find a little more of that Otter spirit within our lives.

In all seriousness, Otter, you were a fine, fine cat. Here's to you and to many wonderful memories. May you ever rest in that heavenly laundry basket that awaits all good cats when they die."

And finally, I felt that it was my time to send out my own thoughts on Otter's life. Here is my theory:

"In reality, Otter was, as you all have said, a cat on the fringes of society. A loner, a bit smelly, and a little slow in learning how to accept a good rubbing. His habit of walking away in between pats was a bit of a turn off - but since we've all been pondering what Otter was REALLY up to all those years, I'd like to offer my own theory. Perhaps he was restless because he was thinking. From the moment little Otter was first born and looked up through the leaves of the bush he was born under and saw the sky, he began to think, and he was destined to become one of the great cat philosophers. "I think, therefore I am." At the age of 15 (in cat years that is) he began submitting articles to the cat papers under the pseudonym "Otterstotle." He was a troubled cat, you see. He saw a great many things wrong with the world and wished to put them right by exposing them to the rest of the cats for what they truly were. And so he spent his days alone, lost in thought, and trying to figure out the answers to all the problems that he saw. Like all great thinkers and creative cats, he was slightly mad. In his middle years he got into the rather unsightly habit of drooling when his thoughts got particularly wild. But the rather pungent odor emanating from this drool was partly a ploy to keep off the authorities, who by this point in his life were searching for him high and low as his articles were beginning to excite members of the feline species. When he was worried that they might be getting a bit too close, he would go into hiding for a while in that particular drawer under my bed - an excellent hiding place I might say. Sadly, the madness really got to him in the last few years of his life. He was unwell, as we all could see.I'm glad to know that he spent his last moments in the dark familiar coziness of my drawer, asleep. And there you have it - my thoughts on Otter's life. Yet one more lesson to take from him: Perhaps we should all encourage our thinking side a bit more, and devote our lives to trying to change the world."

And these are the theories on why Otter's life always seemed so lonely. Really he was quite a loveable cat, in his own way. Thanks for listening!