Kitty

In an average child's life, how many pets would have died under his/her watch? And does that number include the ones our parents flushed down the toilet but told us "The fish has gone to live with his mummy and daddy"?

Last month, I put my cat to sleep. Some people may feel I killed my cat. Others may feel I had put my cat out of its misery of kidney failure. All I know is I looked into her eyes, listened to her plaintive and weak meows of pain, felt her legs tremble under her skeletal frame, wiped off blood-stained vomit from her whiskers, and my heart broke into pieces.

I still don't know if I made the right chioce. How can one tell if it is the right thing to end a life? All I know is it was a decision made out of love. My most loyal companion, my bestest friend, and one whose love I know I had without prerequisite or condition.

Since childhood I have had many pets. Or rather, my parents took care of my many pets. We had a lot of dogs -- my favorite, when we were living in Malaysia, was Lucky, the timbermill mongrel who bore lots of puppies and created a dynasty ruling the west end of Penang, Malaysia. There were also several bunnies, chicks, little goats and a fat guinea pig. That was when we had the luxury of cheap land.

Then we moved to Singapore, where three kids squeezed into a 10 by 10 bedroom. The pets shrank accordingly and we fostered little chicks, terrapins, and guppies. My class was bought a hamster, whose coat was so luxurious we named her Velvet. I seem to have the good fortune of being acquainted with fecund animals, as Velvet seemed to have no problem finding a mate everytime she twitched her little hamster whiskers. Velvet was the matriarch of a hamster empire that managed to provide a pet to almost every one of the 30 kids in my class.

Subsequently we moved to a larger house, and we adopted a dog from the pound (which was an excuse, really, for us to visit the nearby pound to oooh and aaah at cute dogs). A cross-dacshund we named Lady, she was the epitome of stylish elegance. The way she folded her body into a neat bow before she sat down, the way she raised her chin when our mean neighbor walked by, the way she would stand alertly when she knew we were coming home just by the sound of my father's car coming round the bend. Lady seemed to know more about our lives than we did ourselves. I always thought she was the smartest pet ever had, and it was proven to me one day. We let her out for her daily walk, and she never came back. Our parents told us she decided it was her time to go, and she'd rather go away then let us see her last day.

After college in New York, I did have, for a short time, a pet albino hamster named Dante, as its red eyes reminded me of the seven levels of Hell. After which Kitty came into my life. She was picked up from a warehouse during a snowstorm, with the vain intention of bringing her back to the warehouse after the snowstorm was over. She stayed for 10 years, through five different apartments in New York City, living on a boat for a year, heat waves, snowstorms, cement yards, fire escapes, a short stint with another cat, another short stint with a Siberian Husky, and one bout of bladder infection.

Kitty moved with me to Hong Kong, and earned the high praise from the pet transport agency as "the most poised cat we've ever transported". She sat through the cross-pacific trip with admirable endurance, with very little disturbance. In our new Hong Kong home, she found her own little nook in a hideaway shelf in my living room cabinet. She continued to sleep by my back as was her habit in New York. She still refused to drink from her dish, but daringly lapped at water in my glass, soup in my bowl, and jumped on the bathroom sink to look at me expectantly when I went to wash my hands, hoping for a chance to drink from the bathroom faucet. She could tell whom I liked or disliked, and was friendly enough to let the ones I liked pet her back and rub her forehead. She liked to sleep in the same bed with the people I liked, which was great praise, I suppose, in cat-world.

Kitty was 13 years old in human years when she left. Kitty's ashes are now in a stylish marble urn, back in the little hideaway cubbyhole that was her favorite spot. My flat is no longer covered in cat hair, my clothes now need less brushing. But there is a big hole in my heart where she used to be, the bed is less warm now that she's not there sleeping by my back,and my flat seems emptier than before. I miss her unconditional acceptance and uncanny ability to know when I'm feeling blue, when I'm happy, and her stubborn reluctance to let anyone tell her what to do.

I fill the gaping hole in my heart every now and then when the little bell on her collar, which is still latched around my bag, tinkles sharply. I am thankful that she spent so much time loving me, and I hope that she knows I will miss her forever.