To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
— Mary Oliver, excerpt from In Blackwater Woods
My brave warrior Loki lost his two-year long battle with cancer and crossed over the rainbow bridge on 1 July 2025.
I could tell you about his last days. About how this fastidious cat, who would eat nothing but his own food throughout his life, began to eat pieces of chicken and fish and meat and eggs from our plate. I could tell you how the cancer ravaged his little body, how it sent an arrow twisting into my heart to see him shrink from strong and lithe alpha cat to little more than skin and bones.
But let me tell you instead about his life.
About his bravery.
He’s been no stranger to death, this brave little warrior of mine.
When he was but a babe of a year or two, he was infected with mange, his fur falling out in patches. The vet said there wasn’t much hope of his surviving. But we fought the infection together, him and I, and I managed to drag him back from the gaping maw of death.
That illness turned my little punk rock kitten into a dignified Professor McGonagall. He could get the same stern expression, looking down his royal feline nose at us, his minions, with his tail curled primly around his paws.
I called him my little herbalist.
He never met a plant he didn’t stop to sample, nibbling away at leaves as though he was cataloguing them all. His favorite was bamboo — he would demand to be let out to nibble its leaves every single day, until we had to move the plant to a different spot, just to hide it from him.
I called him my little panther.
His favorite perch was on my bookshelf. He would climb up there to yell at us for our slightest transgressions, throw a few books off the shelf when he thought we weren’t paying him enough attention, then stretch out panther-like, paws and tail dangling, and fall asleep.
I called him my little cheetah.
There wasn’t a height he couldn’t conquer. You’d find him lounging at the top of my ceiling-height bookshelf, peering at us from the top of the cupboard in the bedroom, perched on the kitchen cabinet, hissing away at the pigeons outside the window. We’ve installed many a barrier to prevent him from accessing certain spaces, but given enough time, he always found a way around them.
I called him my little escape artist.
If you weren’t careful, he would dart outside the door between your legs. Racing towards the bamboo, or running up the stairs to sunbathe outside the door to the terrace. The scariest were the times when he ran down the stairs. We had to race after him, terrified he wander off into the street. The nightmares this boy gave us, until we cat proofed the area outside our floor.
I called him my little doctor.
He could always sense when one of us was ill, or stressed, or low, and then he would curl up right beside to us, lending us his warmth, his presence, his protection, making us feel safe, cared for, and loved.
I called him my little protector.
This alpha cat who could scare away the monkeys, watch over his brother Simba, and take little kittens under his wing whenever we left them at the cattery during our travels.
I called him my Zen philosopher cat.
He would sit for hours, Sphinx-like, in meditative contemplation. I often wondered what mysteries he was unraveling, what feline philosophies he was formulating.
I called him my Anne Geddes baby.
The way he curled up while sleeping always reminded me of her photographs of newborn babies — so peaceful, so adorable, so perfectly formed.
We had 12 beautiful years together. And though he’s left a gaping Loki-sized hole in my heart, I wouldn’t trade a single moment of those years with my little fur baby.
I can imagine him up there, jumping from cloud to cloud, the alpha cat among all the alpha cats, the protector of the kittens and the lost ones, the keeper of order and discipline, the wise Zen master imparting his wisdom to his fellow cats.
It was our greatest joy to be his cat parents, to watch him grow up from punk rock kitten to wise old soul, to snuggle up with him every evening, and have him crawl into our bed on many a nights.
My beautiful, brave, Loki. Thank you for these 12 glorious years that you spent with us. Thank you for your care, your unconditional love, and even your mischief. Thank you, my baby, for making our lives so much richer and fuller with your presence.
Give them a taste of your special brand of mischief and love up in heaven!