Chiquita the Buddhess

Chiquita, our space cat, passed away naturally on Saturday, August 25th, just shy of her 18th birthday from renal disease. She was always the sweetest cat that anyone had ever met and she touched many, many lives.

Chiquita was abandoned by her owners who moved and left her behind in December 1999 along with 2 other cats (Boba Fett, Amidala), whom we still have, and two rabbits (oh fateful day!) whom of course were our first rabbits (Jar Jar, Darth), and two parakeets (Luna, Skywalker), whom we also took in. We would have taken the iguana they left as well but he did not survive the abandonment.

Before we knew Chiquita’s name, we always called her ‘the Lolly cat’ because she had the same markings as our white collie, Lolly. We would often see Chiquita sitting on top of the roof of her house where she loved to sun herself. She was well known in that neighborhood and fed by all the residents as her owners never cared for her or fed her. She was the cat who made you love cats and her beauty was unparalleled, it was breathtaking and stunning, from the bottom of her black-padded feet to the tip of her Norwegian Forest cat ears.

In 2003, Chiquita had a dental cleaning and stopped eating for nearly six weeks. She developed fatty liver disease and had to have a feeding tube installed in her neck and I fed her tiny amounts of food every hour on the hour for 10 hours a day for two months. All the vets had given up on her. My stubbbornness finally had value and she began eating again well after the window that the literature previously observed recovery, two months later.

She pulled the feeding tube out herself and started eating dry food (of all things!). We had some extraordinary experiences during that time. I remember losing hope myself and asking, “Chiqui, why won’t you eat!!!?” She showed me that she had an orange squid in her stomach. Then I went to check on her and she had pulled the feeding tube out of her neck and thrown it on the floor. It was orange. Another time, when the tube was still in, I fed her a little bit too much and she threw up. She kept throwing up and finally I asked, “Chiqui are you done?” The feeding tube acted like a microphone for deep down in her throat and she spoke out loud in English, “I don’t know” in a halting manner.

But although her liver fully recovered, her kidneys had been irreparably damaged and we began a long journey into becoming fluid in sodium chloride.

Her kidneys were treated with herbs from the wonderful herbalist Debbie Hoyt and “Chiqui” nearly sprang back 100% again. Four years of fluids though, will wear you down. Debbie helped her beat a urinary tract infection which Chiqui had been plagued with for nearly her entire life.

Before she became our cat, she became known throughout her neighborhood as the cat who wouldn’t kill. Unlike all the other outdoor cats, Chiqui wouldn’t kill baby birds or mice or any living thing. And so it was that she was our ‘upstairs’ cat who could be trusted to snuggle up next to the macaw or the tiny parrotlets without a single devious thought crossing her mind. She was the epitome of benevolence, the most spiritually wise and wonderful cat imaginable. She was our space cat, our astral-projecting feline tip toeing on a bridge of light between the dimensions, one foot in this world and one foot in the netherworld, all the time. You could see it in her eyes.

We would often say to her, “Put in a good word for us Chiquita.”

Chiquita has served as one of the animal shamans for my animal communication practice now for the last five years. She will continue to do so although she is in Spirit. In fact, she has always been in Spirit, it was just her body that tethered her soul here for a little while so I could drink up her majesty and wisdom. She was my snow leopard, my Buddhess, my Tibetan princess.

Our lives will never be the same. An era has ended. Namaste Chiquita. See you at the big party at the Rainbow Bridge.

I’ll be seeing you.