He arrived geriatric and intergalactic.

He was the patriarch of impossible panache.

Mortimer would make no time for mourning, but mere mortals must weep.

It was a classic Tabby’s Place case of audacious expectations. A skeleton loosely draped in stripes, the ancient stray had renal values “incompatible with life.” Impounded by animal control, confounded by a septic mouth and villainous kidneys, Mortimer arrived already out of time. Sand was spinning down the hourglass.

But we are ludicrous lovers at Tabby’s Place.

The old cat was ours, which entitled him to outrageous hope.

The old cat was alive, so we rubbed the sand from our eyes.

The old cat was about to teach us a thing or ten about being young.

We cast Mort in the role of “Lobby cat” for all the usual reasons: we feel badly for you; we want to flood your days with mush; we need to “monitor” you. But if we believed Father Time was frail, we had a lot to learn about rocking around the clock.

Mortimer was here to party like it was 1928.

All ribs and self-righteousness, the Lobby’s eldest made it clear he was no one’s sleepy grandpop. He ran wind sprints simply to enjoy the existence of his legs. He bestowed his bones upon laps, well aware that he was a gift. He fancied himself Jay Gatsby, although the entire invite list to his party just read “Mortimer” over and over.

He glimpsed his reflection in the Lobby windows and saw a creature composed of solid gold.

Perhaps this is why he couldn’t forgive silver tabbies for shining. For his own secret reasons, Mort had it in for Valerie and Prescott, taking them in his angel-hair arms with diabolical delight. The silver girls would not tarnish his toughness.

When we shushed him into his inevitable time-outs, I swear Mortimer smiled like the toddler-teenager he still was.

Mort was a bit more patient with non-silver rivals. In the honest poetry of our receptionist, the shimmering Sharon, Mortimer had but a “brief exchange of paws” with Nina. This makes perfect sense. Nina is the sort of sappy snickerdoodle who can’t sleep until she’s told all her friends how much she loves them (again). No doubt the tiny tortie told Mort he was her special Mortie.

But if praise inflated Mort’s ego like a bounce-house, love landed softly in his castle. Our eldest child was nothing more than kind.

Mort knew who needed a bony benediction. Age had embroidered empathy into his stripes, and Mortimer sought the sad and the shaken. If you found yourself melancholy on a Lobby couch, Mortimer would find you. He would host a peace party in your lap. He would love you with the ludicrous confidence of a creature who owns himself entirely.

He would, in that instant, come to own you.

We say “once a Tabby’s Place cat, always a Tabby’s Place cat,” but Mortimer took a red pen to this: “once Mortimer’s human, always Mortimer’s human.”

High on the happiness of belonging to Mortimer, we’d forgotten that he clinically had no business still being at the party. When his kidneys began their final careen, we reeled with grief and disbelief.

One heart was brave enough to gild and guide Mort’s final days.

“Goodbye” is a toll none of us can afford, although we somehow scrape up the change each time. But “goodbye” is amplified a thousandfold when it happens in your own home. I tremble with awe every time one of my colleagues rises to provide this final hospice foster, an open-eyed march into the depths of heartbreak.

That’s just what Jae did. “I’ll take Mortimer home.”

They are among my true heroes.

In his final days, Mort got to shine in his own window. The party tiger was cherished and chosen, a cat with a castle and a legacy. He crossed the veil full of memories and full of years.

Our empty laps remember his comfort, more grandfatherly than he’d ever admit. Laughter licks our tears when we remember his inappropriate jokes about the silver tabbies.

Time meets gratitude in a lagoon of ludicrous love.

Thank you, beloved boy.

We will miss you as long as we live.

Sprint and party in full splendor.

We will see you again.

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