I suppose, like any love, it is hard to justify rationally. Most people see a fat orange cat of moderate feline beauty. But she is inhabited by such an active intelligence and out-going personality, she lights up my life.

There was a time, after Kisa died, that I thought no other cat could be such a close companion as she was. It is still hard for me to write about Kisa, even all these years after her death, because it reminds me of how much I miss her and how special our love was.

In the years following Kisa's death--beginning a scant week later--other cats trickled into my life as I sought solace from missing her. No living thing can take the place of another. All it can do is provide a distraction while it finds its own place in your heart. So Johnny and Newt and Toby and the others found their way to us. I loved them and cared for them but none shared the special closeness of spirit that I had with Kisa. Until that day in October 1994 when a orange scrap of a kitten ended up at the Animal Shelter.

She was a mystery kitten, found alone in a building that had been locked-up for the previous three days. She looked to be just three weeks old--much too young to be wandering around without her mother but there she was. She was brought to the Animal Shelter just moments before I arrived for my volunteer shift, and I could hear her crying the moment I stepped out in the parking lot. She was starving and wanted someone to do something about it!

Once I got into the cat building, I mixed some canned cat food with warm water and finger-fed the little kitten while Sherry explained her circumstances. Animals as young as she was didn't belong in the Shelter environment, so before I knew it, I volunteered to take her home. For foster care, of course. Just until she was big enough to adopt out.

She never went back to the shelter.

After twenty-four hours, I was hooked. The demanding little furball was a handful, but she was mine. She was barely old enough to eat on her own, so I had to hand-feed her several times a day and keep her clean and warm. She loudly protested if left alone for any amount of time and simply refused to sleep in the little box beside the bed I had prepared for her. No--nothing would satisfy her but to sleep in our bed. The tiny kitten climbed the box spring and mattress and crawled under the blankets, sleeping between our feet at night--her little paws stretched out to touch us. After her long days of abandonment, she wasn't taking any chances of being left alone again.

Punkin Trouble Plamondon (as in "Trouble is my middle name") has matured into a confident and out-going cat. In a species noted for its stubbornness, she has raised hard-headedness to a new high. She terrorized the older cats to a point where most of them decided to move into the shop, leaving her the undisputed Queen of the household. The day begins, ends and revolves around her. She is firmly convinced that any visitor that comes has come to see her, and holds court from the center of the dining room table. She sleeps on my pillow or at my feet each night. If I am gone for more than twelve hours at a stretch, her feelings are so injured she will ignore me when I come home until I have properly apologized. She is given to excessive, embarrassing displays of affection. But that's okay. I adore her, too.

Punkin could not be more different from Kisa. Where Kisa was shy and inobtrusive, Punkin craves attention and has never met a stranger. Kisa was quiet and subtle. Punkin is not. Yet she touches the part of me that had been barren and still after Kisa died. She has become another darling companion.