- You now have learned enough to see
- That Cats are much like you and me
- And other people whom we find
- Possessed of various types of mind.
- For some are sane and some are mad
- And some are good and some are bad
- And some are better, some are worse —
- But all may be described in verse.
T. S. ELIOT, “The Ad-dressing of Cats,” Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
As I went by my neighbour’s home two days ago, her black cats were sitting out enjoying the good weather. They looked so comfortable and cute that I decided to photograph them. As soon as I approached, they got up in the manner in which cats do, and started moving around. They were happy for the visit and this is the result of that time. Of course, my own cat, Cali, is in the collage.
In the summer of 1992, I took my Dad to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “CATS” on Broadway. My mother died in early 1992 and my parents had been planning a trip to New York to see their grandson who was performing in this. I thought that there was no time to waste in getting my Dad to this show. He was very excited and happy to be there. At one part of the performance, some of the cats come out into the audience and my nephew came and touched both of us. This was thrilling for both of us. We also had a wonderful tour backstage after the show.
These black cats brought the memory of that wonderful show to my mind and the wonderful evening we had together – my nephew in the show and my father and I in the audience. Evenings like that one rarely come twice.
There are strange and wonderful happenings in life that we don’t have the vision to predict. Many years earlier, this same nephew had been visiting Toronto when the same musical was running here and he had expressed a great interest in seeing this. We bought a ticket for him to go, and as he was a young boy at the time, we gave him a ride there and picked him up after the performance. He found the show thrilling and said he wanted to be in a show like that in the future. Little did we know that this expressed wish would one day come true.
My own son went to New York to see his cousin in this performance and was given the ticket as a gift. I was reminded by my nephew that we had given him the ticket to see “CATS” when he first saw it and how he had enjoyed it. I am also reminded of what Steve Jobs said: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path.”
At his grandfather’s funeral, this grandson sang the song “Memory” which his grandfather liked so much that he had written down the words when he came back from New York. After his death, we gave the copy of the song that his grandfather had hand-written to him. These are the last lines of the song:
Touch me. It’s so easy to leave me All alone with the memory Of my days in the sun. If you touch me You’ll understand what happiness is
Look! A new day has begun.
So much for my reminiscences. Enjoy the collages!
