OUR LOYAL MINI

Mini bore Tiny. They were Siamese. The similarities ended there. Tiny hated humans. She’d scratch and bite without provocation. Mini, on the other hand, wouldn’t hurt a flea—not an easy task for a feline with nine lives.

When the neighborhood kids came over to play, my father gave his routine. “Would you like to pet the cat?” he’d ask. Before anyone could answer, he’d pick her up by the tail and extend his offering. She’d hang there, like an offensive dishtowel, and before anyone could object, before anyone could accuse my father of cruelty to animals, she’d close her eyes and purrrr. Mini loved the attention. When he’d lower her to the kitchen linoleum, she’d rub against his leg and meow for more.

Another oddity—one that frightened the bejeebies out of our first-time visitors and served as a bathroom deterrent—occurred in our darkened hallway. A slow moving mini-Cyclops, its glow-in-the-dark eye, greeted those souls brave enough to walk the plastic carpet runner. “That’s our cat,” we’d say reassuringly.

Mini didn’t have a genetic defect. Tiny, though, must’ve had something wrong with her, perhaps a brain tumor—to be that mean, to be that unhappy—what else could explain it? It wasn’t the lineage. Mini was perfect in every way. She’d brush up against anything and everything to show her affection; her affection is what blindsided her.

Doors get slammed. It doesn’t matter by whom. It doesn’t matter whether the unsuspecting culprit is in a hurry or just plain angry. Accidents happen. A rubber-tipped spring, commonly known as a doorstopper, poked her eye out, left it dangling, and, with much pleading from two teary-faced boys, our father dug deep into his savings and paid a vet to work his magic.

Mini outlived Tiny. Twenty-one human years; that’s a long time for a cat. But not long enough for a cat like her.