“I” is for Igor -- but not the hurricane!

Below, Igor had made himself a nest in our bed. "Up? You want me to get up? Why? I'm a cat. Don't you know cats sleep most of the time?"

Below: Igor doing what we called his "cute thing". I could never resist rubbing that pink and white tummy.

Below: Igor ate some of his food, then walked away, leaving behind this smiley-face in his yellow plastic bowl. This is just as he left it. Dick grabbed a camera immediately, to record his cat's artistic ability (for posterity, of course).

And finally, Dick's favorite photo of his boy. Dick had this old, dusty, broken toy on a shelf and I tried to convince him to throw it out. "Maybe Igor will like it," he said, so he gave it to the cat, dust and all. (Men! LOL)

Like the hurricane, our Igor was a force to be reckoned with.

He was my husband Dick’s old grey tabby cat, who chased dogs out of his yard, dragged home a frozen seagull (for his lunch or as a gift to his humans) and thought he was bigger and tougher than any man, dog or bird on the planet.

Igor led a long and eventful life: once hitching a ride on top of a car without asking the driver; once disappearing for 6 months before one of Dick’s daughters found him at the SPCA.

After that, he was moved here to live with us. My big old white kitty, Ava, was so happy to see another cat, she rushed up to rub noses with him. However, Igor had been the terror of his old neighborhood, and no cat had ever rubbed noses with him before, so he fled, yowling.

Ava calmly trotted after him, caught up with him under a table and, sheltered behind the tablecloth, tried once more to be friendly. Igor hissed and ran again. From then on, rejected and hurt, Ava wanted nothing more to do with him.

Igor lived to be 20 years old and, when he died, we built a mound of rocks and planted trees over his grave in the back yard. We call it Mount Igor.

Photos by Richard Schear and Kay Davies.

Posted by Kay Davies for ABC Wednesday.