Congo and Christmas

To say that this has been an interesting year is an understatement.   We started it off by having to put our beloved Jenny-basset down on New Years Day after a lengthy battle with a mammary sarcoma (another post on another day).  My mother-in-law was diagnosed with and had surgery for breast cancer about three weeks later.   Fortunately, she recovered nicely, and is in good health now.   And, of course there have been our daughter's health travails (well documented here).  Blessings include, among others things, the birth of our first grandchild.

Then there was Congo.   

This will be the first Christmas in 18 years that we have not had Congo kitty helping us celebrate the holidays.   He was a holiday fanatic.    As a kitten, he would climb high into the tree and lay in the branches.  Made no difference to him if the tree was real or fake.   It was put in the corner for him to roost in.   He loved to wander amongst the gifts, laying on and in them, hiding behind them, and eating the bows and ribbons.   Low hanging ornaments were to be batted at, removed from the tree, and swatted across the floor.   The tree skirt was for laying on in a shaft of sunlight.  I'm not a fan of all the hoopla and disruption, but he looked forward to it every year.   I think he enjoyed me admonishing him like one of the children to "be nice to the tree".

 
Strangest of all was Congo's obsession with a homemade Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.   My mom was a second grade teacher, and one year as part of a school fund raiser, the High School Shop boys made Rudolphs to sell.  She bought me one, and I began setting it out every year when the kids were little.   My oldest is almost 31 years old now, so suffice to say, Rudy has some miles on him.   He's a rustic piece of my family's "holiday heritage".   Assembled from a landscaping timber, wooden dowel legs,  plastic eyes, and do-it-yourself antlers made of twigs culled from the yard, he is also wired to accept a single, red light for his nose.   

Congo LOVED his nose.   He would sit there staring at it.  He lovingly head butted it, occassionally leaving a strand or three of his lush gray fur hung on Rudy's face.  He and Rudy had some mystical kinship.   Oddest of all, Congo would gnaw on that blinking red nose.   Did not matter if Rudy was plugged in or not -- teeth marks and flaking red paint everywhere.   When we caught him doing it, we'd scold him.  But the evidence of his crime was always there in the form of Rudy's red nose minus chips of paint.   We've replaced many a bulb nose over the years and every single one of them had his teeth marks on them.

Congo died of old age this March just a few days shy of his 17th birthday.    Part of his passing was due to his antiquity, but I also think another was grief at Jenny's passing two and a half month's earlier.   When she began to fail, so did he.   He was a strange cat who loved a basset hound and the holidays.

As I began to dig out and assemble the holidays decorations this season, I knew that I'd have to also un-box Rudy in all his not-so-red-nosed glory.   I told my husband I didn't want to set him up, but he encouraged me to anyway.    So, I went out in the yard to find him a new set of antlers.   Then I set him up and plugged him in.   The bulb still works, and if it goes out this year, I will save its mangled remains as a memento.

So, here's to you, Congo.   I'd give just about anything to be scolding you not to gnaw all the paint off Rudy's "red" nose.   He misses you - and so do we.