R. I. P. Caruso

 

R. I. P. Caruso: 1988 - 2006

Today I had to lay to rest my beloved Caruso, my feline companion for the past 19 years – one year longer than I’ve known Christian! He’d been gong downhill for the past few months and his decline rapidly accelerated over the past couple of days. The vet came to the house and I held him in my arms as the doc gave him the shot. I’m having him cremated, since I wouldn’t know where to bury him. He’s always been an indoor, city-living, apartment cat. 

In April of 1988, I was 26 years old, living on Euclid Avenue in San Francisco. Having spent the past two years living in London, Berlin and Helsinki, I was now “stable” for a while, working on my Master’s degree at San Francisco State University, so I decided the time was right to get a cat. I’ll always remember the day I got Caruso at the SPCA: He was in a big cage with about 15 other kittens. When the attendant opened the cage to let me pick one out, most of the kitties just lolled about and ignored me. But from the very back of the cage, a little orange fireball came running to the front, literally screaming at the top of his 8-week-old lungs “PICK ME! PICK ME!” He was the obvious choice. 

Back home, my little kitty’s impressive voice demanded attention wherever he went, so I decided to name him Caruso, after the famous turn-of-the-(20^th)-century opera singer Enrico Caruso. Soon thereafter, we recorded the “songs” I’ve linked to below. Just like all kittens, Caruso was always under foot, but one day he gave me a real scare. My phone was ringing and I was running to get it before the answering machine picked it up. Caruso got tangled up in my feet and I ended up stepping on his head! He seemed OK at first, but then I noticed he was being unusually quiet and still, just sitting on his chair, gazing blankly into space, a dumb look on his face with his tongue sticking halfway out. Fearful that I had given him a concussion, I rushed him to the vet. But the vet said there was nothing he could do; we just had to wait. He snapped out of it the next day, but from that day on, he had his distinctive snaggle tooth which gave him his cute crooked smile. I think I knocked his jaw slightly out of alignment.

Caruso's Debut (link to song)

Over the years, Caruso grew into the perfect cat. He was always playful and friendly. My friends were always amazed at how he would “fight” with me. He’d really look ferocious when he’d “attack” me, but he never once hurt me. I think that’s because I always alpha-rolled him from the time he was a kitty, so he always knew who the real Leo the Lion of the house was… ME! He loved to sleep with me, right up by my face, which I loved. He had several tricks which many of you probably remember, including “Escape from the Shopping Bag” and “I Must Lick!”

What Am I Doing 2 U Cat? (link to song)

As he grew older, he fattened into a big lovable sandbag of a cat, topping out near 20 pounds! He took after his daddy that way. Even in his old age, he always loved to play with his toys, and he remained incredibly affectionate right up to the very end.

I remember at one point in the late 1980’s, when I thought for sure I’d be dead in 5 years from HIV. As part of my Shanti Project training, I had to write my own obituary and will, and I remember breaking into tears as I wrote a letter to my mom and Betty, asking them to take care of Caruso after I was gone. He was my only “possession” that I cared about, that I had to worry about. Now I’ve outlived all three of them, and life goes on… 

Caruso, I’ll miss you terribly…

My Mother's Obituary

 

Jo Ann Elizabeth (Koviak) Mitchell

12 December 1936 -- 15 September 2004

Jo Ann Elizabeth (Koviak) Mitchell has left this earthly existence, peacefully departing her body while asleep at home in Seaside, CA.

Born to Tony and Mildred Koviak in St. Louis, MO, Jo Ann and her family moved to the Monterey Peninsula in 1947, where she attended St. Angela’s School and was a member of the first graduating class of Junipero Memorial High School in 1954. That December she married her husband of 25 years, Jake Mitchell, and they moved to Hawthorne, CA.

Their children came soon thereafter -- Misty, Heather, and then Jeffrey -- and Jo Ann spent the next decade fulfilling her duties as a good mother and wife. With the dawning of the Age of Aquarius in the late 60’s, Jo Ann’s cosmic consciousness blossomed, and she embarked upon her quest for knowledge and enlightenment that continues now in her afterlife. Caught up in the wave of liberation that came with early feminist ideas, Jo Ann studied to become a registered nurse, and worked full-time in the psychiatric unit of Hawthorne Community Hospital. It was there, in 1973, that Jo Ann met co-worker Betty Monaghan, who became her best friend and partner in life. Jo Ann went on to get her Master’s Degrees in Psychology and Philosophy and continued to study and develop her talents in the metaphysical arts.

Jo Ann moved with Betty to Pacific Grove in 1979, working at and eventually retiring from Community Hospital in 1992. In the 80’s, Jo Ann focused her healing talents and loving energy on people with AIDS, working with the Monterey County AIDS project, and the arrival of Jo Ann’s dear granddaughters Paige and Briley Butterfield caused her heart to overflow with joy and happiness. Over the years, Jo Ann delved deeply into advanced esoteric studies, focusing on comparative religions, astrology and the tarot. She was affectionately known as Tarotmama to many of her friends, and she was a source of support, counsel, wisdom and abundant love for everyone she knew, most recently helping family and friends through the passing of her sister Sharon Grout.

She will be sorely missed by all who loved her, and all whom she loved and left behind: her beloved life partner Betty Monaghan, her children’s father Jake Mitchell, her children Misty Butterfield, Heather and Richard Borgaro, and Jeffrey and Christian Mitchell-Matthews, her granddaughters Paige and Briley Butterfield, her sisters Elaine Head and Julia Janikula and their families, her brother Michael Koviak and his family, her brother-in-law Gene Grout and his family, lots of nieces, nephews, cousins and other family members, and countless friends and loved ones whose lives were forever changed by this remarkable woman.

A celebration of JoAnn’s life will be held at the Unity Church Of Monterey Bay on Friday, September 24^th at 10am. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Jo Ann’s memory to one of her favorite charities: the SPCA, Lambda Legal, or Planned Parenthood.

My Father's Obituary

Jake Mitchell
December 30th, 1924 - March 19th 2016

Jake Mitchell was born on December 30th, 1924, in Gallup, New Mexico, one of Reynalda Mitchell’s eight children. Pop’s father was a musician and bootlegger who went on the lam from the FBI during Prohibition when Pop was four. Pop’s family never heard from him again. Reynalda was a very poor single woman who couldn’t afford to take care of all her children during the Depression, so the youngest three, including my pop, were sent to live in an orphanage for about eight years.

After Pop graduated high school in 1942, he joined the Navy and was stationed in the Pacific through the end of the War. He stayed in California when he got back, and began working in construction, which ended up being his lifetime occupation. He met my mom JoAnn Koviak in 1952, they got married in 1954, and settled into a suburban housing tract in Hawthorne, CA.

Then Mom & Pop began popping out kids: Misty in 1956, Heather in 1959, and Jeffrey in 1961. While Mom worked at home raising the kids, Pop worked as a bricktender and scaffolder, a proud member of the Operating Engineers Union. He used to come home caked in cement. If it was hot, one of us kids would go get him an ice cold Brew 102 to drink while he took off his filthy clothes on the back steps. Mom would make sure an onion was frying so he’d think dinner was on the way, even though she had no idea what she was going to do with that frying onion!

Once upon a time, Pop was a Republican, but that stopped after Nixon. Pop used to be rather conservative and didn’t like the “naked hippies” at Big Sur during our family camping trip there in the late 1960’s! But the 1970’s was a time of great change and social growth not only for society at large, but for my pop as well. My mom, who was 12 years younger than him, was more influenced by the energy of the 1960’s, listening to Bob Dylan, while Pop was strictly an Andrews Sisters fan! Mom wanted to pursue higher education and work full-time, rejecting society’s gender expectations for women at the time. By the mid-70’s, Mom & Pop’s marriage had dissolved. Shortly thereafter, my mom met her next life partner, Betty Monaghan.

(For a while in the 1990’s, my pop, mom and Betty all lived together in the Seaside house, a successful experience in Modern Family that worked quite well for a while and made it easier for them to visit with their beloved granddaughters Paige and Briley. But after about eight years, my mother and father remembered why they divorced each other in the first place, and he moved into a little studio apartment a block away. There he stayed until my mom died in 2004. Then he moved back into the Seaside house with Betty and lived with her until she died a year later. And he’s lived there alone ever since. Not everyone experiences the benefits and delights of having had three loving and supportive parents. May they all now rest in peace.)

By the end of the 1970’s, Pop’s culture shock was in full swing. His wife had left him and was now in a lesbian relationship, his teen-aged daughters were having sex and doing drugs, while his son was blooming into a quite the homosexual as well! Yet he deeply loved all of us (including Mom and Betty) so he just learned to adapt with the changing times, in order to grow along with his family. During the Reagan years, Pop grew disgusted with the Republican party and moved further and further to the left, and at the end of his life he identified as a Democratic Socialist. His final check was written to Bernie Sanders. Pop never made a big deal about his WWII vet status, and he didn’t like the phrase “Thank-you for your Service.”  Ever since Viet Nam, he’d said we should be telling vets: “We’re sorry we made you go.” He also had lost all patience with all religion and was proud to identify as secular humanist. (Actually, he invented his own religion, Jakism, but that’s a story for another time.) He was a strong supporter of equality for all people, and supported people’s rights to do as they wish with their own bodies.

If Pop had had a different start in life, he would have made an excellent academic. He was extremely intelligent, loved to read, and engaged in his own form of self-study throughout his life. He always said he would’ve liked to have been an archeologist, and he would have made a damn fine one. Many of you know his love of crossword puzzles, and he did the HARD ones!

Let’s sum up by saying that Pop was a dedicated husband, an unconditionally-loving parent, grandparent, and great-grandparent, and a hard-working, long-living human being. He had a good heart and soul. Many of us are mourning his loss today. If you wish to ask for a ghostly visit (which he said he’d be willing to do if it’s possible), please do so right away so that he can quickly depart this astral plane and get on with whatever happens next. Fly freely, Pop! Love and Peace to All.

~ Amen ~

 

If you would like to make a charitable contribution in Pop’s memory, these were two of his favorites:

Animal Friends Rescue Project:  https://www.animalfriendsrescue.org/AFRPDonation.php

Americans United:  https://support.au.org/donate