One of the newborns in the small pile of kittens in this photo taken on the morning of April 30, 2002, grew up to be Duke. He’s now officially 14 years old in human years, whatever that works out to be in cat years.

His mother decided to ignore all the neat nests I had created and instead chose to give birth on the couch in the small studio apartment on the edge of Waikiki where I had an office at the time. The photo was taken just a few hours after they were born.

One of the kittens died a few weeks later. Duke’s sister was adopted by friends and named Maka.

Today, Duke is the only survivor of the litter, and doing pretty well, thank you.

You can read the whole story (and it really is quite a story), or if you prefer, watch the 8-minute video (which desperately needs an edit!).