Happy Continuation Day, Nita

This evening, as swarms of black birds swooped in the rainy sky, in an excellent animal clinic on an awful strip-mall and strip-club lined highway, I held Nita in my arms as she left us. She was a cat that lived in more than a few homes on two continents, was lost in the frantic tumult of Barcelona traffic as a kitten for half a day, took no shit whatsoever, but adored a loving whacking of her ass. She was vocal and tough and sweet all at once and her presence never went uncelebrated. Her absence will go always mourned.

In the last months of her life she traveled in the cabin of a jumbo jet, enduring the stupid hands of Spanish security guards, shrill if kind US Customs Agents, and more than 15 hours smashed beneath a fat airline passenger, all without a breath of complaint. She dominated and tough-loved two big dumb dogs, evaded the cruel and ravenous raccoons of a new city, and took walks with Lili through the park as if she were a dog. When we first arrived she disappeared for 48 hours, provoking fears of the worst in us, only to appear in the kitchen as Lili wept and I scribbled missing Spanish cat signs, looking at us as if to say, "what's your problem? Feed me." Other than that span of time she brought us only endless joy, entertainment and tenderness. Tragically, her new found and cherished freedom was cut short by a car in the damnable slick and dark streets of Seattle.

There was a sweet kind of irony in it, holding on to her even as she was going. It was a peaceful event in the end and she whispered a farewell to me.

But I like very much something that Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Han says about and to someone dying:

"Happy Continuation Day."

Let's all hope that for the one and only indomitable Nita and know that she's continued into a bright place with her brother Gimlo, large insects and plenty of spanking!