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“Patra” Evenzahav
1994 – 2008
Fourteen years ago when
I was a grad student I
agreed to “temporarily” house a
rescued cat until my professor (the rescuer)
found a home for her. I named
her Cleopatra. The
following day, my professor asked me to
“temporarily” house one of Cleopatra’s
young kittens, a beautiful jet black little
thing. I ran out of names (I was a
scientist), so I split
Cleopatra between the two of them.
As it turns out,
“temporarily” acquired a new meaning, and
both Cleo and Patra became my
wonderful and loving
non-temporary companions.
Patra was exceptionally bright and beautiful. She
talked to me constantly, understood many words, both English
and Hebrew, loved peeing in her litterbox a second after it
was cleaned, and would bark for Boars Head
turkey and make hog sounds when eating it. While she was
always respectful and a bit submissive towards her mommy
(Cleo, not me), she always outsmarted her when it came to
getting more food. Second to turkey she loved her
toy mice and would bat them all over the apartment or
fetch them and bring them to me to throw for her. Not
a “pick-me-up” cat, she loved sitting
next to me and wrapping her tail around my arm, like a
little monkey; she also loved sleeping on
my head so that she could be ready to suck on my hair at 5
am when it was time to eat. And while Cleo is a
total flirt and loves everyone who bathes her in attention,
Patra was always a one-person cat, and I was
that lucky person. She warmed my heart every day and made me
laugh all the time, she saw me through my PhD,
she loved me through my
cancer, she kept up her eating and
litterbox habits through my various careers,
she made sure my husband understood he wouldn’t have any dry
or decent smelling clothes if he didn’t understand who my
primary focus of attention was in the household.
She died in September 2008 after a short but brave
battle with lymphoma. She impacted my life
– and my husband’s wardrobe
– in amazing ways, and she will always be in our hearts.
Forever.
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