Musubi left us on April 15, 2024, just two weeks after Auggie died. It took me a while to write about him. The loss is so huge. We have known him for 18 years. As Eric said, it was losing our oldest friend.
First off, I want to say a big Thank You to Dr. Edds and all the sweet folks at Bluegrass Veterinarian Clinic. They cared for him like none other, and in doing so, cared for us too. They exemplify God’s love for us all.
So, here’s Musubi’s story. It’s also a story of us. And if you want more pictures, just scroll through my babbling.
Mu came to us in Hawaii. We were regular volunteers at the local humane society where we took pictures of the pets for adoption. It was rewarding work because our photos drew people in to the shelter. The staff didn’t have time to take quality pictures of them. It took time: you had to coax every single critter into trusting you before you could get a good picture. There was a lot of brushing, giving of treats, sweet talking. And this especially so for cats. Hawaii was unkind to cats.
One day, while I was with Eric taking pictures, we noticed a new cat had arrived. He was black and white and they had named him Musubi – after the little snacks you get in Hawaiian restaurants consisting of white rice covered with seaweed and Spam. I went to snap his picture because he seemed to not need to be coaxed. He tilted his little head and leaned forward a bit as if to say “hello, I am the Musubi”:
So we posted this picture to the website and hoped for the best for little Musubi.
A few days later, I was chatting on the phone with a friend who worked at the shelter, and she told me Mu was put “on the back lot” – which meant he was scheduled for euthanasia. He had been picking fights with other cats, they said, and space was so limited they had to put him down. Eric and I immediately said “absolutely not” and asked our friend to pluck him out of the lineup and Eric rushed out there to pick him up.
The first tangible sign we had of his gentle brilliance came in the form of a gentle coaching. In those wild and crazy days of our youth, Eric and I could get into some pretty heated fights. We were having one of those episodes a day or two after Musubi came to live with us. As we argued about some business issue (we had a business together), and it got heated, Mu hopped up on the desk, meowed, and stretched his paw out to touch my hand. He kept his paw there and tilted his little head at me as if to say “cut it out and just love”. From then on, he was nicknamed Musubi-love. And truly, we started to behave better toward one another. He may have saved our marriage.
A couple nights later, we left our little house to go have aloha Friday (food and beer) with some neighbors. When we came back (admittedly a little tipsy), Mu was gone. He must have gotten out when we were coming and going. We were afraid that because he didn’t know where he was in this new place, he could get into trouble. We called out and looked and looked and finally Eric found him under the house (it was a post-and-pier) and went to grab him. He put up a fight and scratched Eric to ribbons. I mean RIBBONS. But Eric didn’t let go. When we got inside, Eric looked down at his mangled arms and almost passed out.
But Mu was back inside and therefore safe from the wilds of rural Hawaii.
Outside of the scratching episode (we never held it against him, he was scared) he has been sweet, loving – a real true friend. He has been there with me as I recovered from various illnesses. He traveled across country when we moved to TN in a car like a champ. He was the most intelligent critter we’ve ever had. There was something so wise about him, always. And he was all love.
He invented something we called “midnight cat circus”. Many nights, after midnight (I can be a night owl), he would get up on a teak laundry bin in the hallway and jump off it and then back on it. We realized he was playing a game, so we introduced a hula-hoop. We’d call “up Musubi, up!” and he’d jump up through the hoop; “down, Musubi, down!” and he’d jump down through it. He’d do challenges too – jumping from one piece of furniture to the other, increasing the difficulty over time. Eric taught him to “shake hands” first by saying “pawwww!” and he would reach out a paw, shake, then leap.
I went through a spate of crocheting cat hats as a fundraiser. I made a shark hat for him and added that into his circus routine. He seemed perturbed by it in general, but liked it as a costume. Shark hat on, rock and roll time.
I can go on and on. And I am going to, in no particular order, just so I can remember him to ourselves.
He was found in Hawaii hanging out at the airport. This wasn’t uncommon for cats because tourists would feed them. And he happened to love to be in boxes, paper bags, cubbies, and especially luggage. The one time he ever peed on anything was on a piece of luggage. It was in the sweetest days when my sister and her family would come to visit us, and one of our nieces was in the middle of packing bags for sad departure. He loved them so much – truly – and peed on her bag, we think to claim it so she didn’t leave.
He also reveled in being fat, is what we called it. He was proud of his big white belly and kept it spotless until the very end of his life. He’d roll around on the floor showing it off to nobody other than himself.
But as much as he loved rolling around on the ground, he was a climber. We found ourselves staying at a friend’s condo once in Hawaii and she had put in cat shelves all the way to the top of the 25-foot vaulted ceilings. He would climb, all the way to the top – oh my! In later years, he still climbed a lot on our uber-kitchen shelving.
He also was pretty bonded with our other cat, Fu.
They were pals. So much so, that after Fu died, Eric spent an entire year making muandfu.com – a pun-based comic strip featuring the two cats. It was how we mourned Fu – a cat we had since he was a kitten. And now Mu.
There’s so much more. I’ve got lots of little videos and memories of him. I’ve got videos of him playing with Eli, taking a bath, and being held by his favorite person (not us). And I’ll go get his ashes today or tomorrow. That will be quite difficult.