He was rescued by me as a small kitten right before he was going to become a boa constrictor’s lunch. He was about 10 days old at the time. The guy’s girlfriend called me in a panic and said when the boyfriend announced his plans for this kitten- she cleverly got him so drunk that he passed out on the couch. I was at the home within a half hour and took this kitten into my life.

He did not like being inside a room from the very beginning, so I raised him in the barn and when he was 3 years old, he was adopted out but it didn’t work so five days later he was home. He would have been 8 years old this year and this morning, I found him passed away on our stoop.

There was not a mark on him and I am mystified because he hardly ever left the barn he called home. The look on his face was quite peaceful and I laid him in the forest and told him he will be missed. I saw him yesterday, there is an elevated cage on the side of the barn that he liked to sleep in. He got his lovins, his food both wet and dry and that was the last time I saw him alive. I heard a cat scream early this morning and thinking it was a fight, I got out of bed. it was 3:00 a.m. and looked out back, turned on all the lights of the enclosures and checked to see if anything was amiss. No one looked like they were fighting and I did not check the front yard. If I had, I would have found him. I try not to use the front yard when it comes to the cats- everything happens in the four acres behind the house. I believe now what I heard was Salem getting hit on the road. He came home to die.

He was just a black kitty and the dark swallowed him last night and now he is in the light. Bless you Salem, for all your quirks, you sure brought me a lot of smiles over the years.