Mim - Just So

 

“I am not a friend and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself and all places are alike to me.”

I can't remember the first time I heard Mom read Just So Stories to us, probably because it was when I was still in the cradle or crib.  How we took pleasure in The Elephant's Child, How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Leopard Got His Spots.  Boy or girl, toddler or teen (or older), we all loved hearing Mom tell the tales.  

Best of all, the story I could & still can hear told over & over, was The Cat Who Walks by Himself.  It goes straight to my heart, always has.  Perhaps because it's always struck me as being so much like Mim, or at least my sister's image of herself.  I know that she also liked to think of herself as like that solitary cat, forever separate from others, making all places alike in her heart.

At the end of the story, the Cat keeps his side of the bargain he makes with the Woman, but remains a solitary being  - "He will kill mice and he will be kind to Babies when he is in the house, just as long as they do not pull his tail too hard. But when he has done that, and between times, and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone."

Over the past month, the consistent description I heard from schoolmates of Mim was of the solitary, the person who seemed apart.  That was how she experienced herself.  What they were seeing was Mim walking her wild lone.  

Which is not to say that she kept a solitary existence.  Far from it!  From coaching youth football in her early teens to starting wildly popular kids' clubs to being a 2nd mother-unofficial big sister-treasured confidant to countless people, Mim entered the lives & hearts of so many of us.  Her adventurous soul took her onstage, tucked into the mountains, wandering the wilds of big islands.  She touched & connected with & became an unforgettable part of hundreds of lives.  

Still, at the end of the day, at the end of her days, when the moon was up & the night came on, she still seemed to experience herself as one who walks by herself.  

      





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