Murchie

For as far back as I can remember, our family always had a cat. Motor was our first cat (on right), and I think he was my favorite. He slept on my bed most nights, and would lick my ear to wake me up when he needed to go out. It was a really sad day for me, when we discovered his lifeless body in the forest behind my parent's house, his life cut short by a BB gun.

Other cats came and went. We bought Boots from a pet store. He was the most misbehaved kitten we ever had. I figured he was possessed, and he ended up at the SPCA. Pushkin lasted for a number of years. He was a pretty good cat, but he ended up getting sick and barfing a lot. Way too much for any reasonable pet owner to handle. So off to the SPCA went he. "B" (short for Pushkin B) was a super friendly cat that appeared one day and adopted us. But a few months later he disappeared and never returned. Molly was a very energetic kitten but she lasted only a short time. She was let outside once and took off and was never seen again.

It was summer of 1993 when we drove to Mission to a hobby farm to pick out a kitten. I'm not sure how we did it, but we convinced my parents to let us take two kittens. We chose two brothers, Zipper and Murchie. Zipper was named for his energy, as he would zip around the house. It was also a somewhat appropriate name because he had a lot of gas, when he was getting used to the cat food we were feeding him. Murchie was named after the coffee shop that my parents used to buy coffee beans from. Murchie's belly had little brown dots that looked like coffee beans.

Zipper and Murchie were great cats, but very different in personality. Zipper was fearless and completely trusting. I think he ties with Motor for first place as favourite cat. Zipper was just cool. Murchie was much more fearful and reserved. I still remember the day we got them. Zipper was running around with us kids, chasing string. Murchie was hiding in a corner beside the TV. That about sums up their personalities. Unfortunately only a couple of years in, Zipper disappeared. It's unlikely he ran away. I suspect he tried to make friends with a raccoon and lost. Murchie's natural fear could be equated with street smarts, and it paid off; he didn't disappear.

Murchie's life wasn't perfect. He tended to do things that would make him barf. We would let him in and, without even an acknowledgement, he would race for the food, eat like he was being timed, and then barf only moments later (stupid cat). Sometimes he would bring gifts of birds or mice to the back yard door. Other times he would eat said prey, and it wouldn't agree with him.

But Murchie's virtues outnumbered his vices. He was a gentle cat. He didn't hiss, swat or scratch people. You could try to catch him and he would run away, but if you talked to him as one talks to a baby he would flop down on his side and start purring, and then you could just walk up to him. And he never lost his kitten-like purr. Right to the end, his purr was audible and he used it generously. At various times us kids would have the cat on our beds at night, and it was funny cause all you had to do was move and Murchie would start purring again.

November 4, 2008 Murchie, died of old age (about 15 years). He's the only cat our family ever had that stayed with us his entire life and actually died of old age. My parents are now true empty-nesters and they'll have to find something else to blame for the things that go bump in the night.