When I was a kid, as far back as I can remember, we had a bunch of cats.  From time to time my mother would take in another stray, and my father always blew up when he got home, insisting we couldn't keep him/her.  We always kept them. 

In the summer of 2001, my parents drove down to Southern California to visit my brother and sister-in-law and her family.  While they were there,  One of her daughters and her significant other, Teri and DI, brought over a stray kitten they had found and asked if anyone wanted it.   My mother kept her mouth shut, but my father said sure, they'd take him.  He was a little grey tuxedo with a zigzag white mark on his forehead, and DI had already named him Harry Potter. 

Meanwhile, back home, it being Sept. 11, Alex and I were watching the news about terrorists having flown 2 airplanes into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon.. Parents called, and we assumed it was about the terrorist attacks.  instead, they asked if it was all right if they brought a stray kitten home.  My parents were asking me if they could bring home a kitten!  When they got home they said he had been amazingly good during the 8-hour drive.

The first thing he did upon coming in the house was run up behind my akita and smack her on the back leg.  Tish, the 20-some-year-old cat, would put up with his attacks on her for awhile, but when she said stop, he stopped. 

When my sister and her family came for Christmas, Alex and my niece Megan took Harry into the garage and taught him to jump over a stick resting on 2 paint cans.  My brother-in-law got Harry a remote-controlled mouse for Christmas.  Harry chased it for about 2 minutes until he got tired of it.  Then he went into the garage and came back in less than a minute with a real live mouse.  He was like Crocodile Dundee, saying, "Call that a mouse?  This is a mouse."

Harry took to carrying a gym sock around everywhere.  When he slept, he slept curled up with Mr. Sock.  When he looked out a window, he set Mr. Sock on the window sill next to him so Mr. Sock could look out too.  When he ate, he set Mr. Sock down next to his bowl.  This went on for months before Harry outgrew his imaginary friend.

Many nights, when I had trouble sleeping, I would go into the den, put on a video tape, turn the volume down low, and lie down on the couch.  i would usually get to sleep by the mid-point of the movie.  I would leave the door to the den open so Harry could go in and out.  However, the den door had a habit of shutting itself if it wasn't open far enough.  One such night, as I slept on the couch, I woke up when I heard a mon's voice close to my head say, in a commanding tone, "Open the door!"  When I opened my eyes, Harry had his front paws on the couch and was staring at me with his nose about an inch from mine.  The den door had closed and, when I got up to open it, Harry ran ahead of me and shot out into the hall.  One of the ooh-OOH-ooh monents in my life.

We have a lot of coyotes around here.  Harry could go outside during the day, but he had to come in in the evening.  He would usuall come to the door just before sunset.  One day, however, he didn't come to the door, so we went out to get him.  We went round and round the house and out into the yead calling him to no avail.  Finally one of us spotted him sitting on a low branch of the maple tree watching us, probably thinkiing how weird we were.

Some people abandoned a bunch of cats in our area, and soon they grew to a colony of about 40.  We began leaving the garage door open a few inches at night and putting out food for them.  Two young females had kittens in the garage at the same time.  When the kittens were weaned, we went into the garage, caught them, and brought them in.  There were 11 of them.Their moms had been taking them out in the desert and teaching them to hunt, and they had never been really close to humans.  Bringing them in was bringing in 11 wild animals--Quite an experience.  Harry took it all in stride, even gently teaching them proper house manners.

We got them spayed. neutered, and chipped.  We adopted out all the kittens that got tame enough to go with other people.  The others became our housepets, as did one of the mothers and one of her other sisters.  The other mother was too wild and too street smart for us to catch.  We had caught her first litter and taken them in, though, so when her subsequent litters were a few days old she would bring them into the garage and, when they were weaned, she would leave them on the doorstep for us to take care of.  They got spayed, neutered, and chipped too, and the tame ones adopted out.

This is a small house and the cats, being feral born, needed a bit more room, especially once the permanent residents numbered in the 20s.  We had to put in a pet door.  Every now and then a strange feral adult would come sneak in at night to eat in the house and would, after a while, make themselves at home.  Harry accepted them all with admiral stoicism, even when one of them, especially one bigger than him, showed a desire to oust him as alpha cat.

Harry was my father's cat.  My father got Alzheimer's and eventually went into hospice care here at home.  One morning we woke up to find him dead.  Harry got onto the hospital bed, onto my father's ankles, and walked up his legs and torso, finally stopping to stare at his face.  Then Harry got down and walked out of the room.  Afterwards, he seemed at peace with his favorite human's passing.

When our cat population rose to a high enough number, we installed a cat door and they became indoor/outdoor cats.  Occasionally one of the cats would be taken by coyotes or one of them would go live with someone else as a housepet.  People kept abandonig cats out here, and the nature of the colony changed as different breeds were introduced.  For a while they looked a lot like Siamese but a little stockier, Then they looked part Persian, and, most recently like Maine Coons.  One of ours, Vivi, is indistinguishable from a black smoke Maine Coon.  People had no trouble wanting to take one in.  Also, other people started taking care of ferals, one going so far as to build an outbuilding just for them, complete with heating and built-in beds.  Finally, we were down to 8 cats.

When Harry was 15, he started to go downhill.  He developed arthritis and his eyesight was going.  A year ago, my mother, who was then the cats' favorite human, died suddenly.  Harry's health really began to decline.  He stopped grooming himself much, and a few months ago, he stopped eating regularly.  A few days ago, he lost control of his bladder.  Then he began having trouble walking steadily.  The night before last he slept on my bed--something he hadn't done in years--and yesterday, with Alex and me by his side, he died.  Later today we are going to bury him, probably under the pine tree.  Rest in peace, Harry.  You were much loved and will be sorely missed.