A Slideshow Celebration of Siah's Life

 July 29, 2026

Farewell Letter to My Beloved Siah

                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                    July 28, 2026

I want to tell you something,

so there won’t be any doubt,

you’re so wonderful to think of,

but so hard to be without.

 

I cannot bring back the old days,

when we were together,

but your place next to me is empty wherever I go in this house,

with my broken and lonely heart.  

 

My Beloved Siah,

I am writing this letter to tell you how much I miss you; how life without you feels so void of meaning.

I want you to know why I betrayed your trust and let you go over the rainbow bridge, out of my reach forever.

In May I felt a lump on your side while caressing you. Dr. Alexander, your veterinarian, was unable to feel a lump after thoroughly examining you. I asked her to do your annual exam, which was due next November, so as not to inconvenience you later.

All tests came back normal, except for a slightly elevated pancreatic enzyme level.

In late June, I noticed a decrease in your appetite, an increase in your water intake, and abnormally small feces in the litter box. I also thought you had a fever. Again, Dr. Alexander could not find anything. She gave you a slow-release antibiotic for any possible infection.

Upon my request, she also took an X-ray of your abdomen to see if there was an obstruction in the colon to explain how your bowel movements had changed. The X-ray showed dark spots in the lymph nodes. That worried us. We made an appointment for an ultrasound on the morning of July 6.

On Monday morning, July 6, I took you for the ultrasound. Dr. Alexander called at about 12 O’clock with the bad news that you have late-stage lymphoma that has spread to your vital organs.”

My heart sank.

My beloved Siah,

I had witnessed Lulu, a feral black male cat whom I brought home from Darby Road, who was diagnosed with lymphoma. A prescription of prednisone kept him alive for six weeks while he grew thinner. When he stopped eating altogether, I had to euthanize Lulu at five o’clock in the morning to spare him more agony, if not any possible pain.

I loved you even more than I did Lulu because we spent nine years together. I did not want you to suffer as Lulu did.

I agreed with Dr. Alexander to prepare to euthanize you. I drove as fast as I could to be with you while sobbing the entire time.

When they brought you to the examination room, you looked afraid and confused. I held you in my arms and kissed you to comfort you. There has been nothing more painful in my life than to euthanize my cat companions to save them from more agony when they were very sick.

As you were placed on the examination table with a catheter on your hind leg, I leaned over to shower you with kisses and tears to say goodbye and to hope that I was comforting you. Dr. Alexander injected you with a strong dose of a sedative that immediately made you unconscious. She then delivered the drug that stopped your heart. She then helped me to regain my composure by giving me a sympathetic hug.

That is how you went over the rainbow bridge, forever beyond my reach.

Your death was the finality, not just of you as a person but of our loving relationship. You, especially after Panther, who died over a year ago, were my companions and main source of joy. I have always prayed to the universe to divide anything left of my life so the three of us could live and die together (Here is my Farewell to Panther).

When you died, you turned from a person into a memory. By losing our loving relationship, I have lost part of my soul and part of my heart.

My beloved Siah,

Do you remember the first time we met?  It was an evening in the summer of 2017. While I was serving dinner to Latte, Echo, and Max, three feral cats by the creek near the mailboxes, you appeared seemingly out of nowhere, an unneutered muscular black male cat with a big head and extra-long fangs who just walked past us without looking at us or showing any interest in the food I was serving. You walked straight in the direction of the marijuana farm. I worried that you were yet another feral cat on the marijuana farm, as were the three cats I was taking care of. 

I did not see you again for a couple of months until one evening you showed up in the western garden of the house. At the time, I lived with Panther and Sunny. Panther, a tuxedo-clad, muscular male cat, chased you away.

However, you kept coming back. And I had to break up fights between Panther, who was defending his territory, and you several times.

As I was welcoming you, Panther grudgingly conceded some space to you. You began coming to rest on the somewhat flat boulder in the succulent garden by the steps to the front door of the house. Panther sat across the steps on the retaining wall to keep a close eye on you. It became clear to me that you wanted to live with me in the house. I named you Siah, which means black in Farsi. I put a towel on top of the flat rock so you would be comfortable. I began serving you canned food, which you ate with great appetite. I spent time sitting by you and talking to you. You gained confidence to explore the garden and liked to sit under the rosemary bush opposite the front door.  It gave you a shady, safe spot, and you could also get a glimpse of the house's interior as I left the front door wide open.

Until that time, I had never touched you. To break the ice, one evening I leaned against the retaining cement wall by the rosemary bush with my back to you. After some time, you approached me, smelled me, and then took a superficial bite of my bare arm and ran away.

Although my arm was bleeding, I was very happy because I knew it was the behavior of a cat that likes me but is too afraid to get close to me yet. It was a sign of affection, tinged with a slight fear of the unknown, not an angry attack. Later, when we became great friends, you liked to bite my hand and arm gently as a sign of affection. Nuppy, the first cat I became friends with, also a muscular male cat, expressed his love by biting me gently.

My beloved Siah,

You remember how every evening before I closed the front door to go to bed, I asked you: “Do you want to come in, Siah?” You did not, and soon after I closed the door, you went away; I did not know where. I feared for your safety as there were coyotes in the area.

You gradually came into the house, and one evening in October, you walked into a trap I had set for you, with tuna inside. I took you to VCA PetCare East Veterinary Hospital in Santa Rosa. The next day you were examined, vaccinated, and neutered. The veterinarian who examined you estimated, based on your teeth, that you were probably about 5 years old in 2017. 

*     *     *

Within a month after you came into the house, I lost Sunny to kidney failure and lung cancer (Here is my Farewell to Sunny).  Sunny was a gift to me on Christmas of 2011, when I found a tiny orange cat under the mailboxes. A female cat, she was pure sweetness and quickly bonded with me. Sunny was a lap cat, which I had never had before. She and I watched movies together, and she slept next to me on the bed each night. Somehow, the universe sent you to be with me as I was about to lose Sunny.

My beloved Siah,

You remember how you and Panther fought so badly every so often that I had to take one of you to Analy Veterinary Hospital for treatment. But you gradually accepted each other and shared the house. Panther liked sleeping in the loft, and you preferred sleeping with me. It was wonderful to see the two of you resting next to each other. A few times, I saw Panther licking your face. Sometimes you slept next to each other on top of the refrigerator where there is hardly room for two large cats. Panther also preferred to make his morning and night rounds in the neighborhood. You, on the other hand, were a homebody, preferring to stay close to me.

Thus, I spent a lot more time with you than I did with Panther, although I brushed him each morning and played with him with a feathered wand while he lay on his side on the step to the loft.

When Panther died in March of 2025, it hurt me deeply because I felt I did not express my love for him as much as I did for you. I mourned him for three months, and he was on my mind daily for about a year.

My Beloved Siah,

As you may know, for me, it is as important, if not more important, to give love as to receive it. You provided me with ample opportunities to express my love for you and expressed your affection for me daily.

You followed me wherever I went around the house or in the garden to help me carry out my daily tasks.  When I sat down to write, eat my meal, or watch a show, you sat by me. It was such a pleasure when you and Panther walked with me to give treats for the neighborhood goats or when I went to the Yoga Room to exercise. We were like a small family.

When I sat in bed to put drops in my eye for glaucoma after my daily shower, about five in the afternoon, you sat on my lap facing me. This was quality time for us as I caressed you with the tip of my fingers, starting by the sides of your mouth, going over your whiskers, around your ears, and across you back.  I could see in your eyes that you were relaxing and becoming very comfortable, stretching your body, your head on my chest, along my body, while gently purring. 

At bedtime, we repeated this ritual, except I was lying down to sleep and would grab you and lay you down on my side, my head near yours, and I would shower you with kisses while telling you how much I loved you. Your body relaxed, and you purred softly. This lasted a short time as you would move down to sleep between my legs, using my knee as your pillow after grooming yourself.

You knew that after a while I had to pull my leg out from under your body so I could sleep on my side. But even then, I would press you with my calves.

Sometime during the night, you would come up to put your head in my armpit or on my shoulder while laying your body alongside mine. I knew you needed affection, so I kissed you, ran my hand along your body, and wrapped you with the sheet that covered me. We then both fell asleep, for you briefly because you preferred sleeping between my legs.

At night, when I had to use the bathroom, you would follow me, pressing your head against my leg. I knew you wanted me to walk you to the food buffet in the living room. As I headed that way as I talked to you sweetly. I then encouraged you to eat what you liked. After you started eating, I walked back to go to bed. You soon joined me, and we fell asleep.

My beloved Siah,

Sometimes when I lay in bed next to you at night, I reconsider my life, which I feel very grateful for, as I think I have done much of what I wanted. Except for a lack of a lasting romantic relationship. My relationship with cats, especially with you, has convinced me that I could be fulfilled and very happy in any loving relationship. We loved each other without expectations or reservations. I was always happy being with you, except when you were not feeling well, and that was because I did not want you to suffer or I did not want to lose you. In our social culture, romantic love is overrated.  Love is the answer, love of all beings.

After being with twenty feral cats in my life, I know how cats and other nonhuman animals suffer at the hands of humans. In your case, I often wondered why a cat as sweet as you was dumped in this neighborhood. Until I noticed a trauma you might have suffered. You were as fearful of little girls’ screeching voices as of seeing a coyote near the house. You would run inside, go straight to the loft, and hide under the bed. I hypothesize that you had probably lived in a house with a small girl and were probably adopted as her “pet.” She treated you as if you were her toy, handling you in ways you did not like; she would chase you, screaming at you. At some point, you might have scratched the little girl, and that is why you were dumped in this neighborhood.

My beloved Siah,

I have been wondering why we discovered advanced lymphoma that had invaded your vital organs without any advanced warning from your veterinarians.

Looking through your veterinarian records, I discovered that two years ago, in June 2024, Dr. Baldwin, then your veterinarian, had referred you to TruVet Specialty in Petaluma. The referral note by Dr. Baldwin reads: “Recent history ~6 months of waxing and waning lethargy, not eating/drinking, afebrile- transiently responsive to supportive care.” That referral was made after I took you to see Dr. Baldwin three times for the same ailment.

At TruVet, they hospitalized you for two nights and ran a battery of tests that again found nothing. I met with a veterinarian for a consultation. Instead, I received a phone call from the lead veterinarian, whose name I do not recall, who explained to me how to treat you with Prednisone. She did not give me a diagnosis.

Dr. Baldwin, who must have received a report from TruVet, did not tell me what they had found or why Prednisone treatment was prescribed. I only knew that it worked. You started eating and drinking normally within 10 days!  I was so happy that I did not pursue the question of why it was prescribed and why it worked.

After reading about lymphoma in cats after you were gone, I realize that you might have had an early case of lymphoma that was treated successfully with Prednisone. The disease went into remission. But it never goes away. It came back with vengeance.

Had I been informed, would it have made a difference in planning your care in the past two years?

My beloved Siah,

I cannot help but consider that if you were my child treated like this by the medical profession, it would be considered gross negligence and malpractice.

Why are veterinarians not held to the same standards? Without a doubt, because in our society the lives of nonhumans are considered less valuable than those of humans or even subordinated to them, as in the case of billions of farm animals being slaughtered for food for humans annually.

My Beloved Siah,

Our relationship was so central to my life that I miss you everywhere I go, and in most things I do. One day soon after I lost you, I truly felt I had no reason to live. Nothing as important as you exists in my life.

Still, I console myself that if you were born in 2012, then you did live a long life. All of us arrive on the planet with an expiration date. The second law of thermodynamics: the total entropy of an isolated system always increases over time. A hot cup of coffee gets cold over time. I venture to say that the last nine years of your life, at least, were comfortable and filled with love and affection between us.

I do not believe in the afterlife. But if there is one, I pray to join you in cat heaven to rekindle our love for each other for an eternity. 

My Mother, Nezhat

By Kamran Nayeri, August 26, 2013

My parents Nezhat Nikrad and Asghar Nayeri in 2004.

The following eulogy was delivered on the day of the burial of my mother Nezhat Nikrad at Oakmont Memorial Park, Lafayette, California, on August 26, 2013.  She died from complications from a stroke at John Muir Medical Center, Walnut Creek, California, on August 23 at 2:55 p.m.

*      *      *

Welcome and thank you for being part of this ceremony to celebrate the life of my mother, Nezhat Nikrad.

Many who have talked to me since her death have shared very kind memories of her too numerous to recount here.  As with all Farsi names, Nezhat has a number of meanings: purity, happiness and “the one who goes sightseeing” among them.  But almost all who talked to me about her in recent days pointed to another trait of her character: her kindness and her willingness to help others. 

Let me cite one: Bijan Nikrad, my second oldest cousin, says about Nezhat in an email message from Minneapolis:

“She was one of the sweetest women we've ever met- constantly smiling and saying sweet things.  Her eyes glowed with love.  I also remember when we were living in Narmak [a northeast district of Tehran; what Bijan recalls must have taken place in the mid-1950s], whenever my Mom would ask for help or felt lonely, aamme Nezhat [an aunt from the father’s side] was always there.”

Birth

Nezhat was born to Legha and Ibrahim Nikrad in Kermanshah, the major town in the southern region of Kurdistan, west of Iran, on April 23, 1927. She was the fourth of six siblings --five girls and one boy.  Ibrahim had another wife and Nezhat had one half brother and two half sisters.  Ibrahim was a landed aristocrat and family lore has it that each child had her/his own room and nanny.  For the Iran of the 1930s, the Nikrad family was very modern.

Nikrad means “generous” or “brave.”  I do not know of any particular story about Ibrahim’s bravery. But all accounts point to his generosity and carelessness with his wealth.  Also, he raised a family during the Great Depression and Second World War when Iran was occupied by the British from the South and West and the Soviet Union from the north.  

Of necessity, the entire family moved to Tehran so that Ibrahim who spoke English could find suitable employment.  

Marriage

It was there where my mother married my father, Asghar Nayeri, in 1928, when she was 21 and he was 25.  The two were second cousins, their mothers being cousins.  Asghar who had recently landed a civil servant job with the Iranian National Police was making a modest salary and felt ready to take the next big step in life. So his mother, Monavar, began looking around for a suitable bride.  They knew that Legha and Ibrahim have a few young daughters.  

So, they went for khastegari--a rite to ask the father’s permission to marry his daughter.  After quizzing Asghar for his ability to manage a family--financially that is--Ibrahim asked who Asghar wants to marry.  Asghar did not know and left it to Ibrahim.  Ibrahim chose Nezhat.  

A favorite story of my mother was her first date with Asghar after their engagement. Nezhat had not yet laid an eye on her future husband. It was deemed improper for women to look directly at men unless they were immediate relations.  Knowing that Nezhat did not like bald men, her sisters told her that Asghar was in fact bald. Poor Nezhat was miserable with the idea that she has to spend her life with a bald man.  

So when on their first date Asghar took her to a bakery for some sweets Nezhat was shocked to see a handsome man with a full head of hair standing next to her. Her heart lightened up.  She warmed up to my father so much that when they went for a walk on the boulevard [then the northern border of Tehran, now Keshavarz Boulevard] poor Asghar lost his bearing and fell into the canal ruining his fancy suit. 

Raising a family

My parents were born and raised during the rein of the Pahlavi monarchy--a period of state-sponsored top-down modernization.  These affected them both.  Much of their teenage years and early adulthood was during World War II when Iran was occupied, the central government was weak and there were waves of revolutionary upsurges from 1941-53. 

Like many young urban couples, Nezhat and Asghar began their family with modest means.  When Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected nationalist prime minister who was overthrown by a CIA-MI6 coup in 1953, sold cheaply priced public land to raise funds to survive the British imposed oil embargo, my father bought about 600 square meters. It was located in an undeveloped region northeast of Tehran which was named Narmak after a village existing there. 

They were pioneers. Our house was the seventh in Narmak to receive electricity which now is home to thousands of houses.  As their financial resources were limited, they built their house gradually with a number of additions and alternations.  

As a child, I remember how my mother toiled alongside my father and sometimes helping the day laborers two of whom lived on the property.  These were young peasants who had come to earn a living as the crisis in the Iranian countryside deepened. Often, Nezhat invited them over to have dinner with us and tell us their stories.  This was before we had electricity so we sat around an oil lamp to have dinner.

Nezhat gave birth to her first child (me, in 1950). Two years later, she had a daughter, Zhilla (she had a miscarriage of a boy a year after I was born). After we moved to the house in Narmak, Nezhat gave birth to a boy and a girl, Kamyar (1955) and Mina (1961) respectively. 

After Mina was born, my father was asked to serve three years in Borazjan--a small town near the Persian Gulf, known for its hot and muggy climate and its prison for those who were convicted of a serious crime and of political prisoners.  We spent three years there. Every summer when the heat was unbearable, Nezhat took all her four children back to Tehran on the bus with a stop in Shiraz to visit my aunt Raffaat (who was five years younger than my mother) and her family.  

A couple of years after we resettled in Tehran, my parents decided to rent our house to a man who wanted to start a school. The house was reconfigured so much that it was hard for a family to live in it again. The school failed and my parents did not get their rent properly. They had to sell the house with a loss. Meanwhile, the family had rented a second story apartment in Koye Kallaad neighborhood a bus stop north of our rented house.  At times, the apartment that was too small for us as Zhilla and I were teenagers and my father’s mother also lived with us most of the time.

By this time, Narmak was an up-and-coming district. My uncle Manouchehr Nikrad and his family had bought a house near our old house in the mid-1950s and my aunt Farrah and her family bought the house next to our rented apartment. This was a happy period for my mother and for us the kids.   

Career in medicine

I was going to high school when Nezhat began her career in medicine.  As a child, Nezhat did not show much interest in school.  She preferred house work.  As it turned out, her household skills helped a lot to raise her family.  My father’s role in raising the family was limited to bringing in his monthly salary.  Nezhat took care of all the rest which as all of you can imagine was quite a lot.  

By the mid-1960s when Mina was reaching school age, Nezhat decided to find employment outside the home.  The opportunity presented itself when Zann-e Rooz (Today’s Woman), a recently established women's magazine, offered classes in First Aid for women. Nezhat enlisted and showed talent and passion for it. After completing the course she managed to find employment in a medical clinic and later she worked in doctors' offices.  She also freelanced---soon there was a stream of people coming to our door asking her for a house call.  Overall, she worked for 17 years as a doctor’s aid--treating wounds, giving injections, and taking care of uncomplicated emergency calls.  By all account, she was very good in what she did. When in fall of 1979, I fell in the dark stairwells of my cousin’s townhouse in Tehran, Nezhat who was there pulled my finger nail and dressed the wound. There are others in the audience who were her patient.  My aunt Raffaat used to say: “If Nezhat was born in the United States she could have become a physician!” 

Her tragedies

The 1979 revolution in Iran brought our family closer together in Tehran once again (as Zhilla and I returned from the U.S.). But the Islamic Republic counter-revolution dispersed us again. I returned to New York in August 1982 and Zhilla and her husband Touraj with their three-year-old daughter Maryam returned to Berkeley in 1983.  A few years later, Mina and her husband Bahram came and soon settled in southern California. My parents and my brother Kamyar who lived in a two-story house my parents purchased in Tehranpars (to the east of Narmak) stayed in Tehran and later moved to a new large three-floor apartment complex in Gisha district in the western part of Tehran. 

Nezhat visited us in the U.S. a number of times.  In May 1990, we unexpectedly lost our aunt Raffaat who lived with her children in Berkeley. She was only 59 years old. To Nezhat this was a great loss as the two sisters were close. 

In 1995, Kamyar died after a year of struggling with thyroid cancer.  He was just shy of his 40th birthday.  This broke my mother’s heart and darkened her spirit.  

After Kamyar, there was no reason for my parents to live in Iran and every reason to migrate to the U.S. where the rest of her family lived--now for good.  On Zhilla’s initiative, they moved to the Bay Area and soon became U.S. permanent residents.  As anyone familiar with older immigrants who do not speak English knows well, my parents were culturally isolated,  So, we arranged for them to move to Minneapolis where all surviving Nikrad siblings--four sisters and one brother--lived.  This was a fun period of my mother’s life as the sisters lived in the same building spending their time together doing all kinds of interesting things.

The long Illness

In April 2002 just before her 75th birthday, she had an open heart surgery. The night after surgery she had a stroke that took away the left field of vision from her left eye and generally weakened her.

The underlying cause was type II diabetes that was first diagnosed at Alta-Bates hospital in Berkeley in 1975.   

As soon as Nezhat was able to travel, Zhilla arranged for my parents to come and live with her in Orinda, California.  Soon afterward, they moved to individual apartments in Orinda Senior Village.  This was a bitter-sweet period.  Mt parents enjoyed their lifestyle there. At the same time, old age began to catch up with them.  

Nezhat’s health continued to deteriorate, first gradually and them more rapidly.  By the end of the decade, she was using a walker and she experienced three falls. In one instance, she broke her arm. The third time she fell, on the advice of her primary care physician and her physicians at John Muir hospital she was admitted to the Rheem Valley Convalescent Hospital on Christmas Eve 2010.  She had become wheelchair bound.

During the two years and almost eight months Nezhat lived in the nursing home she received constant attention and affection from Zhilla, her family, extended family, friends, and the staff of the nursing home.  But she continued to diminish physically and mentally. Her quality of life declined.  In more recent times, Nezhat had a number of TIAs (mini-strokes) and was briefly hospitalized several times.  Each time she recovered but was diminished.

It was the multiple strokes that she probably suffered on the night of August 9 or early hours of August 10 that proved fatal.  Seven days later, her physicians told us that she will not recover from the strokes.  She was provided excellent palliative care and she died peacefully surrounded by her immediate family on August 21 at about 2:55 p.m.  My niece Roxanne who was situated close Nezhat at that moment saw her smile before her last exhale. 

Farewell to my mother

Let me conclude with some personal remarks. My mother to me was a godsend.  She was the only human being who loved me with no expectation. She gave me unconditional love.  She was my support when I needed support. But she never tried to tell me what to do.  In fact, she always encouraged me in what I chose to do even when it required money that taxed her household budget.  So she bought me an accordion when my small arms hardly stretched around it. She bought me a bicycle when my legs were too short to allow me to sit on the saddle and paddle  She bought me books and magazines I wanted to read. When she sent me to buy mortadella from the deli she also gave me money to buy me a beer (I was only about 14).  When I chose to go to Haddaf high school, one of the best private schools in Tehran in the 1960s, she provided the hefty tuition. When I graduated from high school and decided that I want to go abroad to study physics she helped to convince my father to sell the one plot of land they had to pay for my plane ticket and the first-semester tuition, room, and board.  When I fell in love with Mary at the University of Texas at Austin and wrote to my father about it, he wrote back telling me about beautiful Iranian women from prestigious families that I could marry. But my mother fell in love with Mary as well--something she never ceased to do. She always asked about her until recently when she withdrew from such matters altogether.  

I short, this ordinary Iranian woman provided me with an extraordinary parental care that helped shape my self-confidence and strength of character.  I owe her much of whatever I have been able to accomplish in my life. I dare say that in large measure that is how she acted towards other people. 

Of course, my mother was far from perfect. Like all mortals, she had her weaknesses.  I like to note one: As I just described my mother was entirely supportive of me and allowed me to do as I wished. She was not so with my younger sister Zhilla.  When both of us were little, she expected Zhilla to stay with her in the kitchen to learn how to cook and other house chores while I was outside in the garden playing.  My mother like many other women of her generation was biased in favor of boys.  This hurt little Zhilla, of course. But it also hurt me as Zhilla vent off her anger by beating on me. 

However, even here my mother showed her kind heart and spirit. She never interfered with who we chose as our mates. Zhilla found her mate in college and Mina found hers in political gathering during the Iranian revolution.  And when they decided to marry them she gave her blessing and complete support. There was no attempt to manipulate us when it came to major life choices. 

Now this woman who we loved so much is gone. What are we to do? Of course, each one will remember her in her own way. However, a friend told me the other day that she is reminded of her mother when she sees a hummingbird and her father when she lays eyes on a butterfly.  It is a beautiful idea. Perhaps, I will remember my mother when I see a white cloud in the blue sky, or when a doe with her fawn visiting the meadow around my house or when a mother wild turkey brings her chicks to eat some of the seeds I leave for them.  There are so many other ways to remember her. That is a tribute to the vastness of her love and her spirit. 

Thank you. 

The Feral Cat Colony on Darby Road: Part 1

By Kamran Nayeri, November 19, 2012

Our Place Is Where We Are Loved by Jan Yatsko

This essay is about cats, mostly feral or "strayed," that I came to know since I moved to my new home in Sebastopol, California, in August 2011.  It has been hard for me to write about them for reasons that will become obvious to the reader.  The essay will appear in three parts. This is part 1.  It is dedicated to all domesticated animals that live their lives at the mercy of the master who we often call "owner" as if these animals are mere commodities as we once sanctioned human slavery by buying and selling human beings (and in some parts of the world, still do).  I hope it will touch the reader's heart and mind as all other good writings in the literature on animal liberation have done for me.  As Henry David Thoreau noted wisely, enslavement of other animals also enslave us. Without animal liberation there can be no human emancipation.  

When I lived in Atenas, Costa Rica, I met wonderful individuals, mostly women, who operated Fundación Ateniense de Ayuda a Animales Abandonados (Atenas Foundation for Helping Abandoned Animals) on volunteer basis.  They conduct ongoing public education including by setting up a stand at the Friday's farmers market (La Feria) and teaching school children. They also provide free  neutering and spaying of dogs and cats.  Until a good home is found for abandoned dogs and cats, these volunteers offer their own homes as temporary shelter for these often sick and mistreated animals.  This organization is registered in Costa Rica as a non-profit (Cedula Juridica #3-006-542026).

A friend, an artist and Atenas resident, Jan Yatsko used her talents to create the painting "Our Place is Where We Are Loved"  (see above) and donated it to the Atenas Foundation for Helping Abandoned Animals.  All of the proceeds from the sale of this painting will go towards food, medicine and veterinary care.  The painting features Canela (Cinnamon) an abandoned and sexually abused female dog with a big loving heart.  When the abandoned and orphaned kittens were placed near her, she started to produce milk and took care of  them until they were adopted.  Canela was also adopted and now the painting that captured her story is looking for a good home. 

The unframed painting 15" X 20" in an acrylic wash on professional grade watercolor paper.  Cost is $300 dollars + shipping within the US.  Interested people can contact Jan Yatsko for more details at janyatsko@ice.co.cr. Everyone is encourage to visit Jan's website at www.janyatsko.com.

Thank you.

Kamran Nayeri

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The Feral Cat Colony on Darby Road

Mooshi goes to Sebastopol

At 4:30 on August 20 a year ago, I got up from my makeshift bed on the floor of my emptied out bedroom in Montclair, Oakland, put the laundry basket over Mooshi who was still sleep in her bed, pushed a flattened cardboard book box under her bed and used plenty of dock tape to secure the basket on it.  I then put Mooshi in the back of the Prius and drove an hour and half to Sebastopol, 70 miles northwest of Oakland, California.

The sun was rising when we arrived in our new home. I was certain that Mooshi would like her new house that sits on two acres of land in the countryside 3 miles from downtown Sebastopol, a town of about 8,000 people. But how quickly would she adjust?

I first met Mooshi in the parking lot of Ann Head Building complex, part of the University of California at Berkeley, in spring of 2003. Anna Head Building is located at the northeast corner of a large UCB parking lot (which is now turned into a student dormitory).  Mooshi’s stunning beauty—a calico coat with vivid colors of longish hair and beautiful large and intelligent green eyes that made her she look like some Norwegian Forest cat—made me fall in love at the first sight. It became apparent very soon that Mooshi was feral and lived under the building.  I soon began providing her with water and then food on regular basis every day of the year. A cautious cat, it took us a while to get to know each other but eventually we became best friends.  Every morning Mooshi was waiting for me to arrive at work and provide her breakfast. When she was not there calling her name was enough for her showing up. Most days Mooshi would be sitting on top of the forgotten balcony on the second floor just below my office’s window to watch the parking lot as people were heading home.

Mooshi in her home in Sebastopol, 2012

I learned from others that Mooshi was the sole survivor of a litter born across the street sometimes in late 1999 or early 2000. I have no idea how Mooshi’s mother and siblings perished. Perhaps luck was a factor but Mooshi’s intelligent and caution certainly helped her survive. For example, in dry winter days she spent the mornings sitting on top of the hood of newly parked cars to keep warm.  I could see her getting off a car that was parked for a while and jump on top of the hood of a car that recently arrived. She enjoyed watching people, cars and other animals from a safe distance. And she still does. She was also very agile and a great hunter. I called her Mooshi after seeing her one morning with the tail of a mouse briefly hanging from her mouth. In Farsi, “moosh” is the word for mouse.

By 2006, I was looking for another job and had to take Mooshi home. So, I spent months trying to catch her—after all this time I could not, and still cannot, pick her up and hold her in my arms.  She just does not like it. My coworkers, their spouses, people from UCB Animal Control office tried for months to help me catch Mooshi.  Nothing worked.  A woman from animal control with a kind heart for animals gave me a net with a very long handle to catch Mooshi. The idea was to place something tasty on top of the net and then pull it up to catch her.  It did not work.  The husband of a coworker who was suppose to be very good with animals tired to make Mooshi familiar with his scent by leaving his dirty shirts near her food and water dishes. After a few days, he tried to crawl over to Mooshi and grab her.  It did not work. Finally, the Animal Control Office lent me a raccoon trap. For this to work I had to stop feeding Mooshi for as long as it takes for her to walk into the trap for her food.  It tool 10 days of not eating her food—something very hard for both of us. But on March 7, 2006 at about 3:30 p.m. Mooshi walked into the trap.  A coworker with a SUV drove us to the veterinary office.  They ran test for serious infections but fortunately found her to be healthy except for infected teeth. They extracted two infected fangs and some bad teeth and let me take her home. Poor Mooshi was very groggy when I took her to the bathroom that became her room for about a week and [laced her on the towels laid down on the floor of the bathtub.  After a week of regaining her strength and coming out of the initial shook of finding herself in an entirely new place she was well enough to move to the smaller bedroom of the house. I began spending more time with her although she was mostly hiding under the bed.  At night, she tried a few times to break through the glass of the window and jump out.  After about six months, I let Mooshi go out.  When she found a hole under my neighbor’s house she crawled in—looked like home to her. However, after a few hours she came out and I was able to get her back into the house.  After a few times, she was finally at home in the sense that she would go out and come back in on her own accord.

This experience made Mooshi to bond with me more than to where she lived. So, after just three days in her new house on Darby Road she was feeling at home. In fact, Mooshi was actually happier living on two acres of land well populated with gophers!  She spent the next six months gopher hunting. The fact the she never had any success did not matter—it was still a lot of fun and exercise.

Darby Road as a neighborhood

I settled in Sebastopol, California, after a five-year quest to live in Cuba and when that seemed impossible in Costa Rica.  There were different sets of reasons for each of these. But a common factor was the suffering of domesticated animals prevalent in those countries and elsewhere in Latin America (I have also seen it in Mexico and Venezuela). Once in Trinidad, Cuba, I found a blind dog dying of starvation/dehydration under the cocktail table I had sat by to enjoy live music.  In Atenas, Costa Rica, where I wished to settle down dogs that are lucky to belong to someone are tied to a post on a short metal chain 24 hours a day for almost all of their lives—they are used as burglary alarm.  In Ensenada, Mexico, it was not uncommon to find dogs with open wounds or dead by the side of the road, hit by a car.  I limit my observation to dog abuse as the Latin culture is a “dog culture!”

Sebastopol, a town of 8,000 people, seemed to offer some of the qualities of Vinales, Cuba, and, Atenas, Costa Rica. I found a house with an open-space architecture and two acres of land for an affordable price outside of town in a valley that is made up of homes with acreage and apple orchards and vineyards.

The house at the end of the Darby Road appealed to me because it is a quite place facing a meadow engulfed by dense growth of oak and other evergreens that surround a big creek; together they serve as a wildlife corridor.

Darby Road slopes down at about 15 degrees from Burnside—a road that snakes around the top of the hills—surrounded by rows of apple and oak trees, shrubs and weeds, including blackberry bushes.  A deep creek runs parallel to it on the left of the road as one drives down the hill, leading into the big creek.  About 1000 feet from the big creek, Darby Road turns left to become still narrower and much more private.  This part of the road is legally privately held, although people take their walks there or walk their dogs. There are only seven houses on this section of the road.  My house is the last just before a locked gate that makes Darby Road a cul-de-sac.  There are homes on either sides of Darby Road as its slopes down towards the big creek. Most are on private side road. There is a huge apple orchard belonging to a middle-age couple, the Valentios, who are small farmers. They operate machinery such as a giant tractor and a big truck. But manual labor—like preparing the trees, pruning, picking apples--and other more demanding work—are done by seasonal workers of Mexican heritage during the spring and fall seasons. Apples are sold for making juice.  There is also a small five-acre family owned pinot noir farm.  A non-descript building opposite of the small vineyard that is known as the “Apple Shack” is home to some half-a-dozen young male Mexian-American farm workers.

There is considerable number of wildlife such as coyotes, deer, wild turkeys, quarrels foxes, rabbits, gophers, moles, rats and mice, weasels, garden and gopher snakes, lizards, a couple of dozens of regional and migratory birds (quail families live under the blackberry bushes), many garden and house insects, and plenty of various grasses, shrubs, and trees that create a very lively surrounding.  My neighbors have cats and dogs, chicken and ducks, and goats. There is also a rescued horse and donkey.  Neighbors talk about “a bobcat” that lives in the woods surrounding the big creek that has taken their chickens. There is also rumor of mountain lions in the area. But coyotes come here and I once saw one walking briskly past the gate to the neighbor’s apple orchard towards the big creek.  Some nights, I wake up from their howl as they are just outside of my window.

The feral cat colony

One morning a few days after I arrived, I was driving to town when I noticed two small orange cats running towards my car from the right hand side of the road. This portion of Darby Road is surrounded by apple orchards with blackberry and other bushes on both sides of the creek to the one side and blackberry bushes that serve as a wall to hide a quite house on the other. It also serves as the location for loading and shipping apples in late summer and early autumn. Rusting disabled farm trucks and machinery, heaps of worn out tires and wasted wood made it clear that it was also a dumping ground.  The cats were coming from a location near a flat bed truck that was half sunken into the soil and partially covered by blackberry bushes. A rusting shell of an old truck stood 100 feet further some 20 feet away from the road.

I pulled the car to the shoulder and stopped. When I stepped out the cats came running to me robbing their faces and sides against me. I immediately noticed than one of the orange cats had a large open wound above her right eye.  They both looked very small, very thin.  I thought they were kittens. I quickly figured out that they are starving.  They wanted food.

I returned home and brought back several cans of cat food with me and a few dishes and a fork. It took them no time to swallow whatever I served. Meanwhile, I noticed that a black cat has also appeared, and in the distance, a calico cat.  The black cat came closer and let me pat him.  I had to get more food.

Thus began my relationship with the feral cat colony on Darby Road.  The first couple of weeks the cats devoured anything I gave them and licked dishes clean.  They were very much undernourished and both orange kitties appeared seriously sick.  The orange kitty with the wound over her right eye was by far the friendliest.  She actually wanted me to pat her as much as she wanted to eat her food. The other orange kitty sounded as if she suffered from an upper-respiratory infection.  She was also skittish but being so starved she allowed met to touch her while she was eating.  I was so busy with these two cats that the black cat and calico cat simply ate their food in a distance.

Orange Kitty Number Two

After the immediate problem of severe malnutrition was alleviated as the cats began to simply eat their food as opposed to swallow it as fast as they could, I decided to take the orange kitty with the open wound to a veterinarian.  I thought that a raccoon or a fox might have bitten the cat and the wound was not healing due to microbial infection.  The idea occurred to me as a raccoon and a fox did indeed appear at feeding times at the beginning.  Apparently, some kind-hearted neighbors threw food for the cats allowing other animals to eat them.  The raccoon and the fox must have learned that they can share in the cat food being left there never mind that it was served during the day and by the road where people drove by. I was hoping a regime of antibiotics might heal the cat’s wound and if the cat did not have a serious transmittable disease, I could take her home. So, I borrowed a trap from a neighbor, made an appointment (subject to being able to trap the cat) with the nearest veterinary practice-- Analy Veterinary Hospital—and on a Thursday morning placed a small amount of food on a plate deep inside the trap, set the trap, and waited for the orange kitty with the wound to show up. She usually came first. However, the second orange kitty that usually did not show up early and sometimes at all showed up and walked directly into the trap so I closed it manually. 

We registered the cat as the Orange Kitty Number One.  The cat was very docile. Dr. Baldwin was able to examine her without any difficulty.  The tests for feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) were negative. She was given a slow-release antibiotic shot to treat her upper respiratory infection and release to me to take home.  I also learned that she was female and spayed, probably between 9 to 11 years old—an old age for a feral cat. Almost all her teeth and half her tongue were missing probably due to a blow to the head either by an accident (e.g. a car hit her) or by someone kicking her in the head.  I learned later that she was also almost deaf—whether she lost her hearing due to the trauma to her head or she got into an accident because she could not hear well will remain an unknown.  The notion that someone could have brutalized the cat is not so far fetched.  George, a male orange cat, apparently orange cats are often male, that spent his last two and half years of his life being taken care of by my housemate and I in Montclair, Oakland, carried a booby gun pellet in his body—an X-Ray taken just before he died showed it.  Apparently, a neighborhood kid target practiced using George. 

I took the orange kitty home.  I named her Sayda, a woman’s name in Gillaki languae.  I had prepared the larger bathroom and walking closet for her. 

The next day, I easily trapped the other orange cat. My neighbor who came to help feed the other cats was amazed at how trusting this sweet cat was. We signed her in as Orange Kitty Number Two.

Dr. Baldwin had no trouble examining her either. However, she almost immediately suggested that the wound that did not heal was probably advanced skin cancer.  To examine her further, she had to use anesthesia.  I left the cat with her and went to sit by the phone at home. A call came by mid-day.  Dr. Baldwin told me that the cat was bleeding under anesthesia probably because she had eaten rodents with rat poison.  Rat poison is a potent anticoagulant—it kills rodents by causing severe internal bleeding. She said she would do her best to save her.  A little later she called to say that bleeding had stopped but lab results have come in showing she is infected with FIV. She thought that explained the wound. Because the wound was not operable and the cat seemed to be in late stages of skin cancer and feline AIDS she recommended that I give her permission to end her life while she was under anesthesia.  Her suggestion was a rational choice—the cat probably would not have lived much longer and would die a painful death. She could also transmit the FIV to other cats. I fought back tears as I I give her “my consent” while thinking whom am I to put someone who I just recently met to death?

I left her a message for my neighbor who had helped me in the morning about this tragic outcome. When she came to comfort me I could not hold back my tears no more. I lost a friend that I had not yet quite known.  The little sweet cat had made a warm spot in my heart for the rest of my life. All the pains of my decision to put down Nuppy, one of my closest friends and perhaps my most important teacher, in 2008 returned to me.

My only consolation was that of the two sisters I was able to save one.

Sayda

Sayda turned out to be a vocalizer.  She cried when she used the box, ate her food and she sometimes in the middle of the night.  That worried me.  At the same time, she ate with gusto, a good sign of her desire to live and get stronger.  She also began to enjoy some other comforts of living at home instead of under the blackberry bushes.  Within a few days, she began sleeping in her doughnut shaped bed.

About a week after Sayda came into the house a friend who I had not seen for about about two decades came for a weeklong visit from Iowa.  I had prepared the loft for my visitors. To make sure he could sleep well I spent a number of hours each night sleeping with Sayda in the walk-in closet. This seemed to comfort Sayda as she sometimes curled up in my armpit and fall sleep and sometimes slept just above my head on the carpet. She also learned to enjoy being brushed—and she does need it as her fur forms mats. Sayda’s acceptance of my companionship was fostered by the small size of the closet and the bathroom.  Each time I reached out to touch her initial reaction was to recoil. But once she was touched she relaxed and sometimes even purred softly.

Sayda in her walk-in closet on my bedding, October 2011

After my friend left, I began to leave the bathroom door open so Sayda can walk into the large living room full of light coming through large picture windows. Sayda did come to the door but would not cross into the living room. After a while, I brought her in my arms to the living room to sit by my on the sofa. This was fine as long as I sat by her.  As soon as I moved to do something elsewhere in the house Sadya ran back to the closet.  She did not feel safe in open spaces. 

Meanwhile, Mooshi was curious about this visitor (Moosh is curious and very intelligent).  Whenever she tried to stick her head inside Sayda’s turf she was hissed at and chased away by Sayda. As much as Sayda is docile towards humans she is aggressive towards other cats. Of course, she is bluffing with her small body and bone structure.  I still do not understand how small cats sometimes bully large ones; female cats bully male cats, etc.

After a few weeks living in the walk-in closet and the bathroom, Sayda discovered the loft.  The shape of the loft follows the A-frame structure of the house. The ceiling slopes on both sides. On has to be careful not to hit one’s head against the downward sloping ceiling when walking laterally. On each side where the ceiling become particularly low wooden moveable walls encase spaces that can be used as storage. The front and back of the loft face huge picture windows with beautiful view of the meadow and woodland on one side and the neighbor’s large garden on the other. 

One day, I could not find Sayda in her closet. As the bathroom door was always left open I figured she must have gone somewhere. Sometimes, she would go to my bedroom and hide behind or under the bed.  However, I could not find her anywhere on the main floor. So, I began looking in the loft.  I finally found her hiding in a dark corner of the attic. From that day she made the loft her turf.  At night she ventured downstairs to use her box, which was still in the master bathroom.  Once I realized Sayda is going to stay upstairs I took her box to the attic so she did not need to come downstairs to use it. 

Sayda spent the next couple of months hiding behind and under the bed or in dark corners of the attic.  I was no longer able to touch her or brush her. She would runs away.  So, she was putting up with me while in the closet. There was nowhere to hide there.

One night frustrated by Sayda’s behavior, I laid on my belly on the carpet facing her under the bed and talked to her for about 10 minutes.  I asked her why is she playing this game. Are I not the same person who held her, fed her, brushed her?  Why is she now acting as if I am a threat to her? I told her that she should accord herself more comfort. Why spent most her time day and night under the bed as opposed to elsewhere in the loft? I then went downstairs to go to sleep for the night.

I do not know what might account for it, but the next day I found Sayda sitting on the carpet by the bed and not under it.  She never went back to sleeping or hiding under the bed. 

A couple of month later I had a similar monologue with her this time telling her that I have lost my patience with her not ever coming downstairs.  There is sunshine there and she could be in the company of Mooshi and Sunny (I will tell her story in Part 2) and me.

Sayda on her Iranian rug cushion on the main floor of the house. spring of 2012

The next day, Sayda came downstairs and sat on an Iranian rug cushion a couple of feet away from my workstation.  Ever since Sayda comes downstairs every morning after her breakfast and remains there catching the sun light as late as the mid-day.  Sometimes she also comes down at night to sit with the rest of us as I watch a movie or relax on the sofa listening to jazz with Sunny on my chest or legs.

Sayda has also ventured outside a few times.  However, it is clear she feel very unsafe because she is almost deft and is constantly surprised by people and animals showing up in her field of vision blurred by cataract.   

For the first 8 months Sayda’s health seemed to vacillate between poor to somewhat better. Her appetite was not great and seemed to vacillate.  She had formed a large mat on her back that obviously bothered her.  She seemed unwell and showed obsessive/compulsive behavior by licking fur off behind both her back legs and by licking the carpet.  She also exhibited behavior as if she was constipated or had problem passing down her food.  One day all of the sudden she stopped eating. This went on for a few days. I got worried.

One morning when she was sunbathing downstairs, I put a laundry basket over her, slipped a flattened book box under her and taped the basket over it secure. I took her to the veterinary hospital.  Dr. Cloninger found no mass in Sayda’s intestines. But she did find her to suffer from a blood infection common to feral cats.  She gave her a strong shot of antibiotic and sent her home with a two-week regiment of antibiotic. I put the pills in treat-like pill pockets and Sayda eat them gladly. 

Within a few days she felt better except for the onset of diarrhea.  I gave her probiotics for cats.  After 10 days, I called Dr. Cloninger and she agreed to stop the antibiotics.  Sayda’s appetite and behavior improved, She actually put on a little weight—she is still very small.  She does not show obsessive/compulsive behavior and she is not sleeping as much—although she does sleep a lot.  I figure this may be normal for a deft cat.  Also, she has lived about 10 years as a feral cat—most feral cats die within a few years. She is an old lady with disabilities and trauma of a hard life that limit her abilities to enjoy the pleasures of everyday life. Sayda still has nightmares and wakes up crying loud. Only when I rush upstairs to talk to her does she calms down and perhaps fall sleep again.

All the same, Sayda is now part of our household.

To be continued: Part II: Lulu, Calico and Sunny