Ghlaghghee, 2003 – 2015

Ghlaghghee died in January of this year. I had stopped following John Scalzi’s blog Whatever closely some time ago so I missed the entry. For some reason or another it was mentioned on twitter the other day and I finally read it. It’s a wonderful thing to have a person whose profession is words to describe something. I wished I could have conjured half the emotion revealed half the truths Mr. Scalzi does when Samantha died last fall. The bond with a cat is often so subtle that it is impossible to describe and though it leaves a disproportionate  scar when it’s finally sundered, you rarely  give much thought what that bond actually is.

John’s entry does this well and it speaks, for the most part, for me as well. Thank-you John.

Remembering is a source of joy

One of the things we too often discount in this ‘modern’ age is that by remembering and retelling stories we keep things alive in our hearts and heal our spirits. The disconnected glee that John had at my, among others, expense as I would try to pronounce Ghlaghghee’s name now, in turn, makes me smile. For those who are disinclined to read the blog post, apparently  John’s 4-year-old daughter wanted to name the new kitten Fluffy despite an official ban on such ‘cutesey’ names. The daughter won; but John, taking a page from Bernard-Shaw’s book, decided to spell Fluffy with assorted g’s and h’s to the eternal consternation of all readers and speakers. (Gh=f) (l=l) (agh=u) (gh=f) (ee=y)

Apparently Ghlaghghee was also the first internet ‘bacon-cat’ and his fame even exceeded the best-selling author’s for a period.

Samantha was never so famous. Named simply Samantha by our then 5-year-old after a classmate, she eventually became formally know as Samantha T(he) Cat. But she did perfect the ‘clamber-up-the-bathrobe-in-the-morning’ and modeled for several books and magazines—although rarely when she was actually supposed to be modeling.

Anyway, it’s good to remember and it’s good to smile and I hope when my time comes everyone pauses to laugh at me, laugh with me or simply just laugh.