Yesterday we had to put down our beloved 17 year-old cat, Pachaqilitzli.  As the vet’s assistant carried her body out of the room, I saw her one little grey ear peeking above the towel, moving away.  A last shapshot.  I have in mind so clearly a snapshot of the first time I saw her.

It was in Monterrey, Mexico, where I was developing “Ghostdance,” a new choreography with Mexican dancers and members of my company.  We had finished rehearsing for the day, and as we left the studio, an impossibly tiny grey kitten walked out from between two buildings meowing.  Her eyes were crusted shut, and she was terribly thin.  Without a moment’s hesitation I scooped her up and told Tonya, the dancer with me to go to the corner store and get some milk.  I cradled her, feeling myself a sudden mother.   When I called Pam and told her about Pachi (her name in the Nahuatl Indian language means “to be a guide), she said simply, “I already love her.”

Over the next four weeks I fed her with a dropper, stroked her belly to help her poop (something mother cats do with licking), traveled with her on the bus in a box to and from rehearsals, and finally at the end of that time, got a small dose of rabies vaccine so that she could come home.

Pachi was never much more than 5 pounds, but she was a force.  She was specific and clear in her demands, and seemed to know her powers.  For many of those 17 years, she nested on Pam at night, waking her for food or a change of position.  She nursed and protected kittens, Nikita and Musia when we brought them back from Russia.  She nursed Magdalena and Tallulah when we adopted them on Martha’s Vineyard.

For the past three years, she has had one health crisis after another.  She had a good summer, a decent fall, and then began to fail for real.  And then it was time.  Farewell, mi corazon, mi amor, mi angelita, preciosa.  Rest in peace Pachaqilitzli.