R.I.P
Joe the wonder cat
circa 1993 to Nov. 5, 2002

Joe was a very good cat who never met a human he didn't love. And he was much loved in return. Joe loved to be held, and when you held him he would rub his face against yours and wrap his paws around your neck. He'd also drool on you, which was kind of gross. Joe was The People's Cat. He regularly visited the neighbors and he was a considerate visitor in their homes. Joe was also a wanderer. He wouldn't let a little thing like Feline HIV (kitty AIDS, as we call it) keep him stuck indoors (believe me, we tried; his constant yowling chipped away at our resolve until we started letting him pry open the door and escape). Joe was a cat with moxie. When P moved from Northampton to Florence (about 3 miles away), Joe walked back to his old place nine times before giving up. Nine times P got the call from his old neighbors: "Joe's back again. Better come pick him up."

He lived the life every cat dreams of, but his freedom was also dangerous and his luck ran out. Though he'd always fought against our narrow-minded human conventions, it was a human invention that did him in. He was struck in the head by a car and killed instantly. The driver called the house to let us know what had happened, and I picked up his still-warm body from the side of the road where he'd been placed, his body just a little bloody, still intact and unbroken. He was killed just across the street from our house.

Just before Joe was killed he had been visiting with the neighbor's young girl, Mihn, who loves him. This summer, every day when I got home from work Minh would be playing out on her lawn, and the first thing she'd say as I got out of the car was "Where's Joey?" Joe would let her carry him around like Frida's limp cat in Peanuts; he seemed to adore Minh just as much as she adored him. Her parents have been notified of his death and she'll be told when she gets back from preschool later today.