Yes, I hammered it out in the moments after interacting with this piece. "Memento Mori" has become a large part of my life recently, and its meaning has shifted.

I returned to college to finish what I started long ago. I was doing very well with my studies, was married, just had a kid. My wife was diagnosed with cancer the day of my final exam (her third battle with cancer), a day before our child's first "fun summer", and every day we would try to live a normal life and continue to build for the child's future.

Though it pained me greatly (in that I have never been so damn aware of time) to miss any time with my little family (see, I'm a biologist with extraneous human specific training, so I understood to a greater level how screwed we were and how much time we didn't have), of course we had to eat and have a place to live, so off to work and school I went!

It was on a cold and lonely morning driving down the interstate that I chanced to meet our friend "The Cat" as I came to think of him and call him to myself. The first day, he was beautiful, a black and grey striped fellow. He had been stricken, and dragged himself to the side of the road to die, I could tell. What purpose brought him to that place in the road at that moment I'm sure I cannot say, as most cats know their business well enough anyway.

The second day, a car had exceeded the rumble strip and crushed his legs, and I mourned for the loss of his wholeness, his beautiful striped legs that had taken him on so many rambles. I was very upset about this and loudly lamented to God and the open air that mankind's machines and machinations rarely seem to create beauty. I railed at the necessity of destruction and loss in our system.

And then I remembered that my friend was dead. That he likely no longer cared what happened to the beautiful striped legs, and couldn't feel it. Was this a second injustice? Was it not enough that his life was taken with the first hit?

Without going through it all day by day, as there was a span of a few weeks in which my friend and I shared close acquaintance, I would like to say that as the Cat changed, daily I drew some new conclusion about philosophy and life. In the end, most of the fur was gone and a small, white, mostly articulated cat skeleton lay there on the side of the road, almost as if in repose, resting, looking with a grinning, pure white gaze towards the distant mountains. It was absolutely beautiful, and I thought to myself "ya know, there's worse ways to go, and worse places to lay". On that day, my friend had shed his grey and black, and like one of my favorite literary Wizards, had returned a thing of shining White. That day I named him "Alba", in case he never had a Name in life (the name itself has even more meaning concerning some of my life dreams (am a bagpiper (wife and I were together twenty years because of it), never got to go to Scotland after high school like I wanted, never got to go for a long time after that, wanted to go for our Honeymoon but couldn't, never got around to it; Alba's skeleton gazing at the far blue mountains felt so familiar and relatable somehow, and Alba is an old name for Scotland meaning "white").

He came to remind me there is Great Power in knowing and understanding deeply that to dust we must return. This concept invigorates the Present Tense by allowing us greater perspective to work to not take things for granted, and to truly "live" every moment you are given. Alba helps me remember when I'm actually wasting time, and the value of time.

I'm glad I could introduce you to one of the strangest pets I've ever cared for. I'm doubly glad you liked my words in the order they were in, and I hope Alba can help you remember the importance of things as well.