The first time I saw her it was in the reflection of the love at first sight in André’s face. I knew that he was holding someone in his hands when he approached me at the animal shelter in Gordon’s Bay, but it was his expression that caught my attention. Looking at him, it was immediately obvious that whoever he was cradling was coming home with us. That is how Antonia Salieri, aka Ms Salieri or Principessa – our beloved Salieri – came into our lives in February 2007.

She was supposed to be a black kitten – we agreed beforehand that we would welcome one into our lives after the tragic passing of Anya, Mozart’s sister. Anya and Mozart, the two feline siblings, were born in my parents’ home and flew all the way from Austria to join our family in 2006 shortly after André and I were married. And then on 27 January 2007, two accidents continents apart hit our lives: in Germany, my Mom fell a long distance onto concrete in an unsecured building site at work and fractured many bones, sustaining other life-threatening injuries, which took many months to recover from; and Anya was killed by a car outside our house in Rosebank.

It was a time of numbing anxiety and loss for all of us. While we waited for Mom to wake up from her coma, we buried Anya in our garden where eventually a yellowwood planted itself close to the bedroom window and is now a few metres high, marking her grave. Back then, we did not know that it would have helped Mozart to mourn had he seen her body beforehand. Inconsolable, he kept searching for Anya and did not understand what had happened. Friends recommended that we invite another kitten into our lives, so that he wouldn’t feel so lonely. Because I grew up with black cats (Mozart’s mother was also a black cat), that is how we ended up searching for a black kitten to join the family, but while I was looking at the huge cage full of black kittens at the shelter and trying to find The One, André saw Salieri, a tabby with African wildcat markings on her back. It was instant mutual love.

Just before our visit, Salieri was found in a sewage pipe and brought to the shelter. Because no one knew when she was born, the vet estimated that it was around new year’s eve and we always celebrated her birthday on the 1st of January. From the start, even though he loved the others, she was André’s favourite. The two were inseparable. She read the papers with him in the morning, lay on his keyboard or next to it when he was working, and slept next to his feet on the bed at night.

When André died, it took her a long time to return to the bed to sleep next to or on me only, but eventually she did, along with Mozart and Glinka, the leap year kitten born on 29 February, who joined the family unexpectedly in 2008. The three of them – Mozart, Salieri and Glinka – became The Cats of Driekatfontein, as I started calling our home. They were the Furry Ones, our Furry Family. After André’s death, they kept me safe: always present, always purringly loving. They continued to choose me every day, trusting me to take care of them and taking care of me in ways that I will be forever grateful for.

Glinka and Mozart passed away in the beginning of 2024. Soon after, Salieri began talking to me like she had never before. I realised that she had always communicated with the others in a language that they had tried to teach me, but I only ever understood the basics. Left alone with me in the house, Salieri tried her best to improve my Cat. She was never shy, always participating in all the literary events in the house, demanding attention and sharing her opinions freely. Nothing ever happened with my creative writing or at Karavan Press without Salieri’s input, especially her legendary paw of approval which she placed on manuscripts and books that she clearly enjoyed while sitting on my lap at my desk or next to me in bed. She was a literary cat of note, first notable catssistant to André, and then to me.

In her last years, she became quite frail, but her resilience was remarkable. She faced impossible odds several times, but she always pulled through and continued inspiring me with her unconquerable spirit. She also stole the heart of my love, who cared for her and was always there for her – for us – when needed. He understands the incredible bond we shared and was delighted when she decided to sleep on him instead of me, no matter how uncomfortable it became for him. When she fell seriously ill again at the end of July, he watched over her when I couldn’t. She was in and out of hospital for two weeks, and once again pulled through, a miracle over and over again. When she finally returned home, she regained her quality of life – demanding her first breakfast at around half past four a.m., basking in the sun, cuddling with me in front of the TV in the evenings and sleeping in her favourite spots – when we were alone, always with me at night, no matter where I was in the house. She made me believe that we would be celebrating her twentieth birthday on the 1st of January next year.

She was very ill in the beginning of last year. At the clinic, no one believed that she would make it, but she made a remarkable recovery. Afterwards, I started counting to nineteen as a way of begging the Universe to allow her to celebrate her nineteenth birthday with us. From the first day of this year, I began counting to twenty. I had hoped the spells would work again, but what I did not know was that the 20th would become significant in a different way.   

Last Thursday, 20 August 2026, after a routine morning of first breakfast before five, cuddles (I often work on my laptop or read in bed early in the morning, and she always joined me, placing herself between my body and the keyboard or book and sleeping while I tried to type or turn pages around or above her and stroked her – and so it was that day), sleep and second breakfast just before ten, Salieri fell asleep in a sun patch on the side of the bed that used to be André’s and slipped away peacefully to wherever feline angels go to rest. She was nearly twenty years old, ninety-five in human years according to Google, but until the end, she never looked her age: her bright eyes, agility and silky coat made people believe that she was much younger. People liked to touch her because her fur felt so special.

On Thursday evening, on the verge of tears again, I found another coin in the street. I often find coins wherever I go, usually ten or five cents, and I always think of them as my lucky coins, but the 20c coin I picked up in Kloof Street felt like a sign of something coming to an end which cannot be put into words.

I calculated that I spent somewhere around six thousand days and nights in Salieri’s company. Apart from my closest human family members, no one comes near. Salieri and I shared a togetherness that is life-defining. She was and will remain special beyond words. With her death, a gigantic chapter of my life has come to an end. I feel like nothing will ever be the same again, but I know that I will be forever a better person for having known and loved her, for having been loved by her. What a privilege, a treasure.

People continue telling me that I gave the Furry Ones good lives, but I have always felt that it was the other way around: they gave me a good life. They enriched it with so much companionship, care, trust and love. I feel honoured that they found me worthy.

Driekatfontein is now home to a heartsore woman and one human and four feline ghosts. I place fingertip kisses on four urns and watch a yellowwood grow in my wild garden and I am filled with overwhelming gratitude for everything that we have shared over the past twenty-two years …

Rest in peace, my Beloved Ones. I miss you, always.