在美國佛州當貓醫生的二女兒李湉，寫了一封給所有親友報告一年生活的信。其中一段談到貓的死亡和孩子的態度，讓我很驚訝。（本來有六隻）。我把那段信翻譯出來：

It’s been a tough year for our kitties since most of them are over 10 years old now.  We just lost Basil several weeks ago.  Since Gracie now knows every one of the cats quite well, she kept on asking me where Basil had gone.  I tried to tell her that Basil has gone to heaven, but of course she couldn’t understand why Basil just would not come home.  I thought after a few weeks, Gracie would just stop asking, but she never did.  She wanted to go to the hospital to see Basil, and she wanted to go to that place that’s very far away to see him.  I finally got Basil’s ashes back in a black cat statue the other day.  When I told Gracie Basil is in the urn, she smiled and kissed the cat statue right away; and when we got home, she immediately took the statue out of the bag and placed it on our buffet table, along with all the other Christmas decorations.  She would place different ornaments right next to it, and she also would say hi and pet the statue periodically.  She is finally content because Basil is finally back home with us….  It’s so interesting to see things through the eyes of a child.

這一年對我們家的貓貓們是艱難的一年，因為牠們大多已超過十歲了。幾個禮拜前，我們剛失去了 Basil （紫蘇）。Gracie （鍾舒琳）現在已經對每隻貓都很熟了，所以她一直問 Basil 去哪裡了。我想辦法告訴她 Basil 到天堂去了，當然她沒法了解 Basil 為什麼就是不回家。我以為過了幾個禮拜舒琳就不會再問了，可是她卻沒忘記過。她要到醫院去看 Basil ，她要到那個遙遠的天堂去看牠。前兩天，我終於拿到 Basil 的骨灰了，裝在一個黑貓雕像的瓶子裡。（ Basil 本來是黃褐色。）當我告訴舒琳 Basil 就在瓶子裡，她馬上笑了，並親吻雕像的瓶子。到家以後，她立刻把雕像從袋子裡拿出來，放在櫃台上，跟各種聖誕裝飾放在一起。她把許多不同的飾品放在牠旁邊，經常對雕像說“嗨”，摸摸牠。她終於滿意了，因為 Basil 終於回家跟我們在一起了…。從孩子的眼睛看事情真是有趣。