Ike

We said goodbye to Ike yesterday.

Fourteen years ago, he came out of nowhere, crying at our window, losing hair and emaciated. A lost cause. We fed him on the porch, and then each day he waited languidly in the afternoon sun until we returned from work. One day, he ventured inside, we didn't say no, and that was that.

He blessed us with his prehistoric soul. Half-lidded, electric eel black, with a brownish goatee somehow always wet. Most everyone thought he looked mean. No doubt, he liked to lounge on the counter and take the occasional swipe at the unsuspecting. But he also snuggled under the covers at night.

Ike faced the very real possibility of death early. And when his latest ailments (thyroid, kidney, old age) made him increasingly weak, it was clear: he'd face it again. His thing was survival. Down to seven pounds, he stalked water faucets instead of birds and mice.

I'm grateful we shared these 14 years with him. The smallest panther deserved some peace. His hard-scrabble beginnings did not require a troubled ending.

So we held him yesterday morning as he drifted off into that timeless savanna from where he came.

IKE

a day in 1995 — Nov. 8, 2010