Farewell, Kimi cat….you were a good girl
It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to our smug, (mostly) silent, ever patient, loving, Siamese kitty Kimi.
It was ten years ago that Mom called me and asked if I could go get Kimi and take her home…temporarily. Nun-Nun, Kimi’s human, had just gone into a nursing home and poor spoiled, only pet Kimi needed someone to pay attention to her. I knew full well that temporarily meant permanently because that’s how these things tend to go.
Down to Fairmont I went only a few days before Christmas, gathered up Kimi the Silent and put her into the cat carrier. She started wailing like a banshee.
I called Mom from the car, “Hey, I have Kimi.”
Mom “What’s that noise?”
Me “The cat. The one that never makes any noise.”
It was a long drive home.
Kimi wasn’t too sure about our house, since until two days prior, she’d been the pet of a house-bound, elderly person who doted on her and only her. Our house was slightly more chaotic, as she was plunged into the middle of three cats and two ferrets and people who didn’t sit down quite so much.
Still, it didn’t take her long to claim Chad as her human, although she obviously had some stiff competition from the entrenched cats who had also lay claim to him as #1.
When it was warm, Kimi demanded to go outside, spending her time meeting and charming our neighbors. She had quite the little fan club in the neighborhood. We received more than one call that she was trying to get into other folk’s homes! More than once as Chad was collecting her, he would have a neighbor stop and ask, more or less, if Kimi really had to go home now.
Possibly my favorite Kimi story started off with a simple idea. Since life with cats means life with litter pans, we decided that it would be best to put the litter pans in the basement and install a cat door for access. We went with a door that had a release triggered by magnets on the cats’ collars.
Unfortunately: 1. Our cats did not understand the cat door and 2. No amount of cramming the cats through the cat door was helping to make them understand.
We still harbored hopes that the cats would figure the system out we left the magnets on their collars, even after the flap was removed. Since Kimi would go outside on nice days, we had a delightful new game of guessing what she would bring attached to her magnet – a nail, screws, washers, usually small items. The day she came strolling awkwardly home with a tuna can lid dangling between her front legs, we took the magnet off!
Kimi patiently outlived all her siblings and was finally, in 2015, the sole kitty of our house, much to her relief. She had waited 7 long years to once again be the only cat in her house. Queen of the Castle! No feline competition! And then a little stray tortie kitten found Chad.
Poor stoic Kimi dealt with this intrusion as she had with all the other new siblings she’d endured during her life with us. She patently ignored her, despite the kitten’s overtures to make friends. Eventually they came to an understanding which appeared to be sometimes Kimi wanted to chase kitten, other times she pretended kitten did not exist. It seemed to work out for both of them pretty well.
Kimi was a simple and loving cat who only wanted a nice lap and someone to love her. We hope we passed muster. Godspeed smug one, we miss you! Your sister Nyx misses you, too.
