With the loss of Grandma Meow Moses, life is different here in the black hole just outside Harmony Grove.
"If I die before Tuna does," she had said after the, Who is Trying to Murder Who Case, set before Judge Judy. "I demand an autopsy."
Well, the autopsy results are in.
The cause of Grandma's death was simply, old age.
Statistically speaking it would have been cause for suspicion had her stepbrother taken a trip over the rainbow bridge first, as he is fourteen years her minor.
But she did have a point. He had tried to kill her several times over the three and a half years they had shared the same roof.
Shared, is not exactly the right word. I have not been able to come up with one that describes two cats in the same house with such a unique relationship. There does not seem to be a word that encapsulates all the chaos, commotion, pandemonium, loathing, spitting, swearing, spying, bullying, window peeking and attacks if and when someone like yours truly, was to go and screw everything up and leave a door that should have been closed, open.
In case you never had the pleasure of meeting Grandma Meow Moses, let me give you a little history.
According to the woman with royal blood in her veins, she came to America via the Mayflower. Before that she had spent her youth in Buckingham palace where she hung out with Queen Elizabeth, who she found to be snooty. She said she also knew the original Queen Elizabeth and she was also on the stuffy side. Grandma and her new American family moved several times to many different apartments here in the Midwest.
Sometimes it was hard to follow Grandma's story timelines, but she only began taking a B12 memory supplement along with me and my Sweet Sven after her arrival here at the age of sixteen, when she had nowhere else to go.
At first glance Grandma appeared to be a polite little old lady in pearls and a church bonnet, clutching a matching daisy clad purse.
Unfortunately, introductions did not go well when Grandma and her cataracts made the mistake of thinking the cat in the tuxedo sitting in the window staring at her was the butler.
Tuna took offense to this and instead of carrying in her bags, he tore into her. That is when she made it clear that she knew how to swear like a sailor despite her holier than thou appearance.
Despite all the peace negotiations we set up, things just kept going south.
So, Grandma moved into a fancy assisted living apartment on the lowest level of the house where she received meals on wheels, slept in a heated bed and ordered in a maid service.
She came upstairs most days to spend time in the warm sunlight where she loved to curl into a ball and sleep, until the butler who was not really the butler, could be seen hanging from the kitchen screen door trying to claw his way into the house to give Grandma a piece of his mind or else to tear a piece of her mind out.
In her fancy downstairs facility, she began to grow dreads and started rocking out with Bob Marley, except for Sundays when she tucked her locks inside her bonnet and went to church.
Her favorite day was laundry day, but always said there should have been more of them. When her maid came down and gave her apartment a once over with a vacuum and a mop, she tagged along and pointed out everything Millie missed.
Grandma was an avid and dedicated member, as well as head of the black hole complaint department. She played Cat Lady in the hit series, The Titanic Trio. She was the assistant editor in chief of Millie's story writing and was seen more than once standing on top of the keyboard searching for the delete key. She often hogged the writing chair, forcing Millie to wheel in the uncomfortable spare for herself. Grandma was known to be tight when it came to her coin purse and loose when it came to her bowels. She hated having her hair brushed and despised bathing as she came into her Rastafarian age. But she thoroughly enjoyed her daily ration of milk, a spoonful of sour cream here and there and her ganja, always. She adored movie nights on the couch with Millie and Sven where she purred while her nemesis was outside terrorizing the rest of the black hole.
A week before Grandma's decision to call it quits, she had excitedly moved into a brand-new studio apartment upstairs.
Her maid had tidied up their shared office and had carried Grandma's heated bed and all the rest of her paraphernalia, vinyl collection, eight tracks, CDs, pearls, bonnets and purses, up the steps.
"There is no reason for me to stay in such a large facility anymore," she had complained. "It is too much for me to clean."
This made Millie's eyes pop open, but she kept her mouth shut out of respect for her elders.
So, there Grandma was, all settled into her brand-new place.
Granted, her first night was a little confusing since Millie had moved the litter box a few feet during the rearranging.
"I couldn't find it." Granda said the next morning. "It was dark in there."
Again, Millie bit her tongue and said nothing about the light she had left on.
And when Millie had to order a new keyboard because of a minor accident, she just said, "That's okay Grandma. That old thing needed to be replaced."
"It tastes like shit," Grandma grumbled when Millie commented that she was barely eating her food.
"But it is your favorite."
"I don't like it," she said.
And then Grandma turned her nose up at milk, sour cream and then her nip.
"U-oh."
My sweet Sven and I were with Grandma the day a very nice lady doctor stopped in to give her a gentle nudge and a soft landing on the other side of the rainbow.
"We love you Grandma," I said, sitting next to her on the hard wood floor where she had decided to stop and take a rest.
"Back at ya," she said.
Just before she closed her eyes for the very last time, she faintly whispered, "I want my security deposit back."
I am going to miss that old girl.
