Nika…Some memories of our little cat.

Nika was a very high-spirited young cat.

Sometimes she’d enter a room craving attention going oooh four time quickly as in “oooh oooh ooooh oooh.”

Nika had big green round eyes.

In the bright sunlight, her pupils would almost disappear into tiny black slits.

With her sleek black fur and stocky yet powerful body, Nika felt like a little tractor tire when she was curled up.

I couldn’t pass Nika without touching or cuddling her. Never.

Nika would always sleep between Abbe & me at night. Always.

On that terrible afternoon when Abbe came in crying and said that Nika had been killed, we rushed back into the street and there were 15 bright blue flies on her body.

Her eyes were still open, but seemed somehow off kilter, like they were out of alignment.

We put her in a box, and rushed her to the vet, but she was gone.

When we came home, her blood was still in the street.

Crying, we washed the blood into the gutter and sadly watched it disappear.

Almost 2 weeks after she was killed, Nika’s ashes were delivered in a small pewter urn that was inscribed “Little Nika, who knew only love.”

The urn, like Nika was surprisingly heavy. About a pound heavier than the same sized vessel that contains the ashes of our beloved Pickles the Cat.

When I told our other cat, the male Finn, that Nika had been killed, he curled himself up in a tight ball, and buried his face into his tail.

With Nika gone, a light seemed to go out in our house. Finn tried his best to comfort us, but we were grief stricken for two weeks.

I still think of Nika, and break down in tears. This can happen anywhere, but it usually happens most in the shower…