The year was 1995 and my sister and I, five and eight years-old respectively, were squarely in Disney's target market for their next cult product: The Lion King. We made dance routines to Hakuna Matata, named the family cat Nala, and my sister even went as far as roaring when she was angry at whatever things five-year-olds get angry about. At the height of this lion-mania our cat Nala gave birth to kittens - I was present when the last kitten of the litter, Sarabi, was born and watched her take her first strained breaths as she writhed around looking like chunky animated vomit. Needless to say, my sister and I were spewing rainbows for weeks.
A month or so later Nala disappeared, and the day before we were supposed to hand Sarabi over to some family member, my mother decided we should keep Sarabi instead. She was now officially known as Sarabi Scott Loinaz.
She accompanied our family through two mid-life crises, a divorce, our mini-adoption of Taiwanese triplets, several home changes in South Auckland, and endured our new additions to the family, namely, our retarded dogs Timmy and Zeus. Fed up with the dogs' bullshit she even moved out and lived with the neighbours for awhile.
She would turn her nose up at food if it wasn't to her liking, liked to sleep underneath the covers with a warm human, and could still run up to the top of trees like she was 1/16th her age. It's sad that she ran away to die, but I think she knew that dying in our backyard would have given her canine rivals a free lunch.
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