Our cat Tink died a month ago. It was sudden, and I wasn’t here to help my wife when it happened. I had left the day before and she woke up to find Tink unwell. Where we are there isn’t much veterinary care available. Our neighbor drove my wife to what vet care there is but almost as soon as they got there Tink was gone. They buried Tink near the avocado tree I planted in the yard.

We didn’t know Tink for very long. We adopted her from Mt. Purrnon in October 2021. We have pictures of when we first met, with her curled up on top of a cat tree. She was already six when she came home with us, so we never knew her as a kitten. “We don’t have her baby photos,” is how my wife described it. We don’t know much about her life before we met her, though her paperwork said she came from a hoarding situation. She had the name Tink when we got her, and we kept it because she would come when called, though day-to-day she quickly became Tinkerbell.

Despite knowing her for so little time it was such a delight to watch her personality change as she grew more comfortable with us. Mt. Purrnon described her as a “Curious Calico” and that was always true. Any time we brought her to a new space she would want to explore. We had planned, when we brought her home, to keep her in the bathroom for a bit to let her get comfortable. But right away she wanted to head through the door and see the new space, jump on all the surfaces and discover all the nooks and crannies. Her curiosity would always overcome her fear. At the vet she would be terrified, but it was still a new place to explore, and she would be out of her carrier and climbing up to the far reaches just to see what was there. If you held her, she wanted to be up on your shoulder, to give her a better view of her domain.

She was also always so extremely kind. She would, in extremes, hiss to let her displeasure be known, but she never lashed out, never bit, never scratched. We put her through some trying times occasionally, trimming her nails or giving her a bath, but she largely just put up with it. She forgave easily, especially if she got a treat.

Tink was so small, not even six pounds. I wondered what that meant about her life before she came to us, whether she had kittens young or hadn’t eaten well in her first home. Everyone said she was small but I liked to insist that she was perfectly normal-sized, lest she ever develop body image issues. And when she first came home with us she was so quiet. She didn’t meow much or at all. You could tell when she wanted attention because she would approach you but not quite brush your leg and vibrate her butt. In the mornings she would make her presence known, walking all around our bed to try to gently encourage us to wake up. Eventually she found her voice, coming into our bedroom in the morning to loudly meow for her breakfast.

The best part of Tink getting more comfortable with us is how she eventually became a lap cat. She always liked people. When we had guests over, she wouldn’t run and hide but would make sure to be in easy reach for a scratch. At first the three of us, Tink, my wife, and I, would hang out on the couch, Tink perched on a pillow on top of the couch for maximum comfort. One time, in a special moment, my wife and I were laying on the bed, her falling asleep in my arms. Then, unexpectedly, Tink came to lay on me as well for a nap, and it felt like my whole world was right there. Tink eventually grew to like us enough where instead of being on the couch next to you, she preferred to be on your lap, and family movie nights were just perfect.

We were excited to move to this new house with her. Tink was always an inside cat. She was curious of the outside and liked looking out windows, but I remember the first time we opened the door to the balcony she was scared of the wind. We thought a house would give her so much more space to explore. And it did, though for a long while she liked to spend most of her time on our dining room table. We tried to convince her otherwise, but through and through Tink was a cat. So we forgave her sleeping on the table, and as she got bolder we forgave her drinking from our water cups and, when we weren’t fast enough to stop her, we forgave her from snatching pieces of chicken off our plates. These are the things you put up with from the ones you love.

I came home a week and a half after Tink had died. I knew it had happened but it hadn’t felt real until she wasn’t there to greet me when I returned. We had shaped our life around Tink and with her gone the hole feels so large. I go to leave the bedroom door open at night so she’ll be able to come wake us up in the morning. I go to close the kitchen door so she can’t get into the sink. Descending the stairs I expect to see her there waiting impatiently to be fed, a meow in greeting hoping for a treat. Every box we opened she would inspect, using some for weeks as a bed and others discarding right away. Now we just throw the boxes away. These are the lingering acts of memory.

We loved Tink, with all our hearts. I hope she was happy with us. We were so very happy with her.