Flying Poodles

Our Cat Kari 1992-2008

My daughter’s cat Kari, named after her best friend’s mom Karen when my daughter was 7, died yesterday at age 15 1/2. She was a sweet, affectionate cat, who could curl into a tiny ball and then purr loudly enough to keep you awake. She was a Christmas present for my daughter, when she was 7 and we had just–rather traumatically for all of us–moved to California from the Boston suburbs.

Stacia took this photograph.

After her arrival, in a house that then had two other cats, she promptly understood that her job was to spend all possible hours on laps, preferably Stacia’s. She also liked to catch the occasional mouse–she was quite good at it.

She was so thoroughly Stacia’s cat that she went with Stacia to college, where she became the floor cat in several dorms at Reed–a position she mostly liked–and no doubt added a great deal of philosophical knowledge to her vast store of catly wisdom. Stacia never doubted that her cat should go with her, and made all the accommodations that took without hesitation.

Last summer she began to decline. Stacia nursed her and reluctantly left her with me while she went to Europe. She spent every night of her stay curled up with me, making the best of the situation. She continued to lose weight, and even prednisone failed to inspire her to eat enough. Yesterday, she had a stroke, and Stacia made the difficult decision that the end had come. It is never an easy decision, and I think being able to love an animal enough to ease its death is possibly one of the best signs of adulthood there is.

I have mixed feelings today. I will miss Kari–she was a sweet cat–and there is also more than a little awe at how well my daughter coped with terribly difficult decisions at every step of the way, always thinking of her cat first.