I have lost so many people in my life. My two grandfathers; the mother of my grandmother; the best friend of my father; the best friend of my mother; and one of the worst, my uncle. Among them are tens of other loved ones. The sisters of my grandmothers for example. I miss them all.

And then there are cats.

When I was a junior in the university, a beautiful orange cat had fallen to our balcony. He must have fallen from such a high space and was badly in pain. I took him to the vet; his spine was broken; we did radiology and he was looking at me with a devastating horrible horrible innocence, he knew he was dying; he was in horrible pain and there was nothing you could do for him. My body hurts when I remember that scene. How could the world contain that feeling. I still don’t know. Doctors couldn’t save him and he died under surgery. I had been traumatized thinking about what had happened to him. Those sweet; lovely; innocent eyes; looking at me in a form of “please don’t hurt me” combined with “I see that you care; and you are the only one I have”. It was such a horrible day.

Then there was Suzi’s children. Suzi, Black-tail; or as we call her Khoonegi (Farsi for “belonging to the indoors”) is a very very lovely cat. When I was alone in Madar ’s place; and when it was a bad winter; I began opening the door of the hall and she would come in; go to the dining room; and sleep on the chair. She is amazing. Sometimes she would come and walk me towards the door, then I would open the door for her; she would go to the yard; do her toilet; clean herself and come back inside. Never did she do anything that was not clean inside of the house.

We loved her; and she trusted us; one day she came to the balcony; and I had provided her a home; she stayed for some time; and then we saw four almost identical little kittens. They grew to become really really beautiful children except for one who was different in his face the rest were identical; and only different in they had some regions of black color upon their all white bodies. We had named them: “Left”; “Right”; “Two Ways”; and “Three Ways”; as one had the black region on his left ear; other on her right; then both; and both plus a place on her belly.

They however all got sick. so very sick. And I had to take them to the hospital; clean their eyes everyday for many times a day and for such a long time. I had a hard time in this situation but then; times were about to get even harder as I could not participate in the labor of two other of our cats giving us exactly a dozen kittens of all sizes and ages. And then all of them got this horrible disease that was there in the environment. What a horrible year it was. We were surrounded by young; beautiful; lovely kittens. Left and Right; they were incredible cute and beautiful; two way and the three way were a bit shy and my world was all about them. When they got sick; I had to be on vet hospital all day. I had these kittens to take care of and that is not one easy thing to do. I started to spend all of my savings and those ran out; my job had not paid me for three months and the pressure was really high on me. I felt so miserable there. I remember going to places and cry for their support so that they could give me a few percent off. I began to find other savings; so much that I had to ask Amin for the money I had given him as an investment. It was such a small money; but I had not gotten any other and so I had to.

This reached a place where I no longer had the money to support myself; and there was a day I woke up and saw Three way dead on the balcony, then I took others to the vet; they had to stay there for a week. When I came back; Right had to take her medicine; and she was literally crying; with her eyes popped up; fully black. I cried so much seeing her like that. It would break your heart.

When they were put back to home; Right got lost; and Left; our sweet sweet Left got faint and nothing helped; he died as well. The only one who survived was Two Way; who’s name changed to Patoo . But I lost my beautiful angels.

Saddest part is that this was not the only problem that happened. Khoonegi ’s mom (which turned out was not by blood), also had four kids. She was — like all mothers — very protective of her children and so she had moved them somewhere out of our reach. At first one of these kittens got lost, and then there was this really cute orange kitten; once she was lost and found herself before our window. She was there and looking at us with her tiny little eyeballs. And then in the middle of all this; death happened. [the wording is strange because so much happened to my mind]

One day I was walking by the side of our yard and then I found this beautiful kitten dead; out there. And that death was way more horrible than you could possibly imagine. I saw her skull; and parts of her skeleton; it was one of the most horrible and unimaginable things in life. She was perhaps the second kitten I had buried.

And then things became a lot different; Democracy; our other cat came to labor. (All of these nice and funny names are by Zea ). back then all of her children were sick. on the seventh day of her children living one died of the four and then they all got blind. I had to take them to the vet — they were 12 days old — and then one other died on the way. Once I got there; the doctor said they will never be able to see; their eyes had not been fully developed. and so we had to put them to sleep. I still can’t believe I’ve killed 12-day-old kittens.

When I had come back home; Democracy looked at me with her angry angry eyes and never forgave me. She would begin to scream each time she saw me. My heart literally still burns and hurts when I think about these things. Poor little Democracy.

Bache had two of her children remaining; Einstein and Black and White. One day I heard a neighbor screaming “Mr. Pouya; Mr. Pouya; the crow is killing a kitten; the crow is killing a kitten” and so I rushed into the yard and saw a young little two- to three-week-old kitten. So I had no choice but to raise her. She used to climb up anything and for that we named her Peter Parker. A few days later, neighbors found another kitten in the basement storage. She was sick and her mother had abandoned her. I had to raise them too, she was full of long orange hair and was just the cutest kitten you had ever seen.

Black and White; while was only 10 or 11 months by then, took them as his kids; he used to pretend he had nipples and would let the two kittens think they are drinking milk from him. He was very seriously aware of their safety and by each cat that raised their voice at the kittens; he would come and defend them. And he would lick their ears so much that it lulled them to sleep.

There are things a mother cat has to do for kittens. For example; in the first two months; ten-fifteen minutes after the kittens have eaten milk they must digest it; but they can’t. For that, the mother cat needs to gently lick their belly to help their weak muscles. Otherwise kittens will get serious problems. Black and White used to take care of that; so much that at some point I realized I don’t need to worry.

In stories like this; people tend to keep repeating the stupid “But it is all instinct” stuff. Sure. But then why none of the seven or nine cats that we had did this? He truly was a kind and loving cat. Others would try to eat the kitten’s food; he would stare; not eat; and defend kittens from the predators that wanted to eat their food. I never saw this to ever happen again.

One day; I saw something coming out of — sorry — his butt; and it was worrisome. I didn’t know what to do. He was in pain and still trying to take care of his adopted children. Peter and Orange were innocent kids. While he was suffering; they were playing with him; doing jumps and stuff. He would lick them and look at them with kind eyes.

I took that angel to the hospital; we had lots of radiologies and sonar and turned out that out of bad digestion part of his urethra had come out of him. They tried surgery; and he went into a coma. He never came back.

I took care of Peter and Orange for a whole year till war broke out and a neighbor adopted them.

So many kittens came and go; some went elsewhere; some died. Patoo stayed and she was the only thing I had left of that happy beautiful Khoonegi Family. I tried so much to keep her safe; but this was something so very hard. And then Democracy was pregnant again, making her hate all other cats. And so one of the neighbors tried to hold their wedding in the yard; and given the tension of Patoo and Democracy; this made her leave the house and get into the street.

I was frustrated and sad for a good period of time. Patoo began to live in the street; and she would come to me for food. A relationship that has been sustained for a good period of time.

And so when Patoo came to me and I saw her in labor; I came to the conclusion that this time I have to protect her family at all cost. And as you know the story this never even happened. What a horrible horrible thing.

I’m not sure what made me write this; but I wanted to say that I have been through hell and losing Kamwa is still the worst thing ever to happen to me. It hurts like hell when he is no longer around. I loved him from the bottom of my heart and that heart is now burning with fire.