Cats. It’s got to be cats.

When I was 12 years old I and my mother picked up a pair of kittens from a woman who was giving them away at the local Safeway grocery store.

A female and a male. I named the male Zachary after the Black Power Ranger, while my mother names the female Calisto after a character from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess.

Calisto bore a litter of her own shortly before her death. A woman came to the door one day in tears and said that she had just hit our cat.

Calisto managed to make her way home to nurse her kittens one last time. The internal damage had been catastrophic and we had the veterinarian put her down.

Of the kittens, we kept but one, an all gray runt of the litter. We named him Zing. Both Zachary and his nephew Zing remained with us until the family left Washington around 2006.

Zing found a home with a family friend, while Zachary joined my mother as she flew to their new home in North Carolina.

Zachary lived to 21 years of age, quite old for a cat. In his old age his kidneys were just about shot, the limits of diet and medicine. As his pain and general discomfort became apparent my mother took him to the veterinarian one last time.

Sadly, I was away from home at the time and did not get to say goodbye to a most cherished member of our family.

I am comforted by the many photos I took in his more spry days.

He was often found napping on the back porch.

In my memory he is still there.