Kayli

 

                Kayli, the sun kitty, died on Saturday morning, just a few weeks short of 19 years old, which is pretty impressive for a cat. On Thursday, she spent the day in the greenhouse, negotiating the entire house, three cat doors, one low fence, and a chair climb up to her preferred spot in the sun on the planting shelf.  On Friday night, she basked by a fire until all of the heat had gone. The end came quickly, although we knew she was fading.

                She was about six months old when I found her, isolated with a nasty, drug resistant respiratory   infection, at the shelter. She was in her own cage, huddled far in the back. When I talked with her, she came forward slowly, and then pressed her head against mine, purring. That was her last purr for several months as we took her home and battled the infection. It finally broke on sunny afternoon in late November when we took both of our new kittens outside to explore the yard. While Lucy ran up the tree, Kayli faced the sun, eyes squinting, basking in the warmth. I will be your cat and you will be my people, she told us, under one condition: I go out.

                And so, she went out. She roamed the neighborhood for power nap spots, spending days on the neighbor’s porch (they put out a pillow as she grew older). She was trapped, not once, not twice, but three times in structures around the block because she loved to explore. She rode in the trunk of someone’s car all the way to McMinninville. Fortunately, they caught her as she jumped out and hosted a cat sleepover before she was brought home the next day. She sat under the Ark and accosted people walking by; she had a fan club in China for several years. It was not uncommon to see someone sitting on the curb, holding a conversation with our fluffy, flirting cat.  

                Kayli was a social beastie. She liked a potluck, a gathering of people, and loved a meeting. She would greet each person as they entered the space then sit in the center for appropriate worship. Online, she would wrestle the door open, then howl loudly, weighing in on whatever the pressing issue of the day was. There are countless council shots of her very fluffy tail waving across the camera as I tried to redirect her interests elsewhere.  She even liked to visit Mark at work on the way home from the vet, always on the back of my bike. Bike rides were better than van rides.

                We will miss this fluffy orange cat who was so engaged with the world that she helped read council packets and the newspaper; who slept on the foot of the bed because it was too warm to be too close, but moved into the pile of covers when we got up; who loved the sun and a fire and warmth on her face, as well as tummy rubs and rolling around on the fence, almost but never quite falling off. We buried her in front of the greenhouse, very close to the spot where she decided that we were her people.