Kalvyn

Kalvyn was our first cat. We acquired him soon after we were married, in the fall of 1981, and was part of our family until the Winter of 1999. I were visiting with my sister, LeAnna, on our way to Santa Barbara (where we lived at the time) from our home towns in Northern California. LeAnna's big, fuzzy cat, Kitty, had had kittens, and there were two left for adoption. Kandie wanted to have some company in our apartment, so even though pets were forbidden in our university-sponsored apartment complex, we decided to take one home with us. But which? There was an orange one and a grey one. We watched they playing on the back porch, trying to jump up to the handle on the sliding glass door in hopes of getting into the house. We decided to pick the next one to jump, and it was the grey one.

Kalvyn was spoiled right from the beginning. He got to sleep on our bed, got loads of attention, got brushed often, and got Chirstmas presents. We played with him often, especially his favorite "fishing for cats" game, played with a fishing pole with a furry mouse on the line. He would chase that thing so hard and for so long he would wind up lying on his side, panting.

After returning from a Thanksgiving trip to Northern California, we found that Kalvyn had made a huge mess of our apartment (including a big pile of poop, cat litter, and toilet paper on the bathroom floor, and a box of grape nuts flakes spread all over the living room). He heard us coming, and meowed pitifully for fifteen minutes, as if to say "Don't ever leave me again!" After that, we started taking him with us on trips. He got used to being in the car quickly, after initially hiding under the seat for a couple of hours on the first trip. He would perch on the seat behind the driver or lay on a convenient lap when he wasn't asleep.

He liked to escape onto the roof of our apartment, and one day he had a little romantic interlude with the neighbor's cat, Domino. We got to pick one of the resulting two kittens, and picked the one that seemed the scrappiest. We named her Kyller when she bit Kandie on the nose when she said she didn't like the name. Kalvyn was a doting daddy cat, picking Kyller up and carrying her around, although not quite sure where to. He washed her and watched her and went to her aid whenever she got into trouble.

Of course Kalvyn followed us when we moved to a house in Santa Barbara, then to Salt Lake City, then to two successive houses in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Once he got to be a year old, a friend saw him and immediately identified him as a Maine Coon cat. We had never heard of such a thing, so we bought a book on Maine Coons and sure enough, Kalvyn and Kyller fit the description very well. He grew to be very large, and very, very friendly. People seeing him for the first time would exclaim "What a huge cat!" then find him on their lap or flopped next to them on the couch. If they didn't get the hint he would nab their hand with his paw and pull it towards his head. Hint Hint! Despite his size, we would often notice that he was lying on our lap, without having noticed him climbing on.

Kalvyn made converts of a few people who said they hated cats, and visitors would often track him down before visiting with us! He was the favorite of our sons, and tolerated the sort of treatment young children tend to inflict on cats. He enjoyed their company, and liked to nap near them.

He was a big baby when it came around to claw clipping time, and for years let other male cats in the house push him around. One day, though, we heard a terrific commotion. Kalvyn was finally fighting back, and from that day on the other cats called him "Sir".

We finally lost Kalvyn to kidney failure, and we miss him very much. He was everything a good cat should be.