In Memoriam

Sushi, the lovable grey tabby below, died on Friday 16 Februrary, 1996.

Sushi at about two years of age.

Sushi was with me for 10 years. I rescued her in spring 1986 as a stray kitten from the parking lot of a really bad Chinese fast-food joint in Massachusetts. (I ate there only once and got such a headache I felt as though I had been hit with a baseball bat. Now, I love Chinese food of all kinds, but this is only one of two occasions when this has happened to me. The other place was closed down.)

I had just lost Tsunami a few months earlier; she left home one day and never returned. We never found out what happened to her. So, we decided to keep the adorable kitten. Marlene and I joked that we saved her from being the next day's meal; hence the name Sushi. Now, before you send me a barrage of e-mail, the name Sushi was a misnomer for several reasons:

Sushi is actually Japanese, not Chinese.
Sushi is not raw fish as most people think, but actually vinegared rice, usually rolled up in seaweed and served with raw fish.
Japanese raw fish is actually called sashimi. So is my other cat. He was so named because of his association with Sushi.

So, I suppose we should have named her "Fried Rice" or something similar, but the name Sushi stuck. As I mentioned above, I had previously named a cat Tsunami; this for her tendency to run around the house knocking things down as if a miniature tidal wave had hit. Tsunami was the beginning of my Japanese pet naming tradition.

Sushi had a very independent, typically feline personality. She wasn't all that affectionate, but she was still quite lovable in her aloofness. She was quite vocal, however; she would often walk around meowing, as if asking for something. (That in itself was rather endearing, believe it or not.) She started out as an outdoor cat; however, several years ago we moved to a house near a busy road. About the same time, we also rescued Sashimi, who had been declawed, so we decided to keep them both indoors. Sushi was ever the outdoorscat, however. Whenever we left a door open, she would find a way to sneak out. She'd be gone for hours before returning, usually with a field mouse or a bird in her jaws. Much to my chagrin, she would sometimes leave them as unwelcome gifts on our neighbors' doorsteps. She never slowed down, in spite of her advancing age, but we became more vigilant of the doors, so her hunting trips grew fewer and further between.

A photo of Sushi and Sashimi together. Sushi is survived by Sashimi, shown here in their younger days.

Sushi's remains were cremated and the ashes scattered in a pet cemetery in New Hampshire.

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