When Sebastian and Tangerine died, we really felt it in our house. They were both big cats with big personalities, and despite having a bunch of other cats around, the house felt empty without them. So three weeks after Tangerine died from heart disease, we decided to get a pair of kittens. So we went to a local foster and adopted a pair of wild-eyed, crazed little kittens that we named Rupert and Ingrid. I won’t write about Rupert here. This entry is about Ingrid.

Ingrid wasn’t quite as wild as Rupert was. Unlike her brother, Ingrid would sit on our laps for more than a few minutes at a time before running off to do something else. She was a weird kitten. As a wee one, she would gather up bits of paper, Kleenex and what-not, and build little nests for herself in the corner of the room. It was awfully cute, though it was something Jennifer had never seen a kitten do before, and which we’ve never seen since.

The real reason, though, that we called her Ingrid the Weird was that she was very fond of vegetables. We could not leave leafy greens out on the counters or the kitchen island, because she would run off with one and start eating it. Whenever we cut tomatoes, we had to give her one of her own to play with and eat. She would happy munch on any veggie we put in front of her: cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, spinach, lettuce, and so on. I would make random Facebook entries about her: “Ingrid the Weird like broccoli”, for example.

Her fondness for fruits and veggies waned as she grew older, sadly, and we eventually started leaving leafy greens on the counter again. She grew grumpier as she grew older, preferring to hang out in softs spots rather than in any old paper nest. She was a mamma’s girl, and usually liked to hang out with Jennifer though she would sometimes accept attention from me as well. She became our grumpy old lady cat, and we loved her.

Lately she’d developed some digestive issues. She’d been diagnosed with colitis at some point in time, and lately it had been getting worse. Daily cortisone pills helped, but not enough. It was clear she wasn’t living well or happily, so last week we finally made the decision to say goodbye to her. The vet came out to our home and helped her on her passage. We both cried and Jennifer held her and gave her pets and whispered to her as she left us.

I’ll miss you, Ingrid. I hope that you find all the paper nests and weird fruits and veggies that you want.