Having a black cat in a society as superstitious as ours is a challenge. People look at you as if you belong to some satanic sect. We could not care less about such beliefs.

Every cat, like very human, develops a personality beyond their physical appearance, and should therefore be judged by their character and not by their color. We’ve met plenty of devilish cats of all colors; Darky was an angel in comparison.

About 8 years ago, we picked a tiny silent black kitty from a group of cats that were playing around outside my wife’s dentist’s office. We had been having some problems with mice in the house and decided to get a cat to chase them away. We had already had cats, female cats, but unless they are sterilized, you are up for big trouble. They ended up leaving after a rather short staying.

This time we decided that a male cat should do. So, here we were, at the dentist when we noticed a gang of cats around the ground floor apartment that served as office. We asked around and a lady from upstairs, who seemed to be the care giver, told us we could take one as long as we took good care of it. My wife did the picking. She was fascinated by the black little one with a white bow tie.

During all these years we dedicated several posts like this one to Darky. This one is by my daughter, Hive account@manujune
This one I did a couple of years ago.

When we got home we felt like we had been ripped (not that we had paid anything for the cat). This little one could not even meow and he was showing some signs of sickness (diarrhea and vomits). He opened his mouth but no sound came out of it. It was heart-breaking. So, we went into caregiving mode and started to treat the poor thing. We got some products at a local pet store (we did not have enough to take him to the vet). It worked. In a few days the little one felt better and started to move around. We had two dogs back then and they became his protectors too.

We named him Darky, or Negrito, and even though he could not care less about the mice in the house, he had quite a personality and we fell for the bastard.

When he was big and agile enough to climb, he did what cats do around here. He started to chase other cats over the tin roofs. Even though he had all the food and love he could have needed or wanted, he was a street cat and did what street cats do.

He might spend a day or two in his parrandas, but then he would come back demanding food in his peculiar pitch, a voice all neighbors around learned to recognize. They bore witness of his vocal skills once at a wake a block away. A bunch of women were doing their praying thing and darky showed up on the roof of that house. My wife recognized him and started to talk to him and he would “answer” every question; he talked back every sentence. People were like, no way. This cat can actually talk. Darky had this amazing variety of sounds that made some people think we had found the key to animal talking.

Here is a sample of his talkative self

He always came back, year after year; no matter how beat up he was, he came back asking for help to heal his wounds. He collected wounds of all kinds. Scratches and bites from street fights, burnings and cruises most likely produced by humans, and some other natural health issues. We dealt with all them successfully. Lately, he had been showing some respiratory problems. A whizzing sound that made him a restless sleeper. He did not spend much time at home anymore, but he came for his food, at least twice a day. Until a month ago.

After the tenth day we assumed as a logical conclusion that he had died. He had never spent so long without returning home. It gives you mixed feelings not to say good bye to a loved one. On the one hand you want to have the certainty and closure; on the other hand, you want to avoid the painful last minutes that, depending on the kind of death, sometimes linger for ever in your mind and become part of your nightmares.

Darky left nothing but good memories. Tons of funny anecdotes of his interactions with the dogs, with the little cats that we ended up having over the years, resulting from other cats; females cats we had to get so that someone finally took care of the mice. In one occasion, we had this rat cornered in a room and the dogs were the ones chasing it. Darky was comfortably resting in the hall. The rat ran away from the room and passed Darky by. We were like, it is going his way. He is going to catch it; and Darky was like, just get the hell out of here I want to sleep. I can swear the rat looked at him for a fraction of a second and mouthed a thank you.

We loved him all the same. Unfortunately, when we live with certain economic limitations we cannot provide our pets with all the care they need. We were never able to get him sterilized. I’m sure that might have lengthened his life by making him stay at home longer.

_{This is the last picture I took of him, just two months ago, serving as mentor to another little one.}

_{This is him, about to help himself on one rare occasion that I took breakfast in bed. I think I was sick then, and I foolishly thought he was interested in my health. It so happened he was more interested in my sandwich.}

At the same time, we feel ok at having allowed him to live a pretty free life. He was out pet, but he was still able to live like a wild cat and do what nature dictates them to do.
We will always remember him and treasure all the nice moments we spent with him.

Thanks for stopping by

This was my entry to Hive Pets Community contest. You can see the details here