A week before Halloween Crystal the Kitty headed outside to survey her domain, and never came home. She was last seen by the neighbors heading up the street (being all white she was pretty hard to miss). Now one month later, we've resolved ourselves that she is gone at 10 years old.She was the last white kitty in our home, an informal tradition that had started in 1976.
In a line of white cats that started with Snowy the kitten on Sherry's 12th birthday, Crystal came to us from the Humane Society in 2000 at the age of 18 months; she had showed up at the back door of the society, pregnant and hungry. After spaying her and adopting out all her kittens, she too found a home with us. We packed her in one of those cardboard carriers for the ride home, only to have her chew and claw a way out of it and roam around the inside of the van the rest of the trip! Early on, Crystal leaped from our roof to the neighbor's (roughly six or seven feet) and needed to be rescued when she couldn't get back.
She was twitchy, fast, affectionate, and a loud purring machine. She could run faster than anything in the neighborhood, but wouldn't run from a fight. Crystal held her own against two local interlopers - known around here as "black kitty" and "mutant kitty (weird coloring, striped tail)" - and came home with the battle wounds at least once a year. This ultimately could have been her undoing, since she tended to fight a perceived threat no matter the size or species. With the renewed emergence of raccoons and coyotes in and around our neighborhood, that threat could have been a lot bigger than her.
We'll miss Crystal very much. Rest In Peace, Fat Kitty!
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