In loss

Sometimes words are not enough. Someone gone from amongst you, so swiftly you don't know how to react. Someone with such promise and potential and joy for life. S, we'll miss you. Dear dear J, may all the prayers of the world be with you.

Kenya Photo Diary: Malia Kitty

She stole into our apartment night before yesterday. Had obviously been a pet of the previous owners, the way she rubs herself against the furniture, the way she looked quizzically - almost accusingly - at us in the beginning.

She is curiously familiar, her color exactly the color of Frodo, and this makes me foolishly fond of her. I think I remind her how to play again, hiding a lolly stick behind slippers, with a rolled up newspaper, tap-tapping on chairs till she goes quite bananas. This morning, the chair was strangely warm when I sat on it, and then I saw something padding by. Kitty, now called Malia ("queen" in Swahili) walked nonchalantly and settled herself on the verandah.