Whole Story Behind HerKin

Seventeen Years, One Cat, and the Reason HerKin Exists

"For seventeen years, a cat taught me how to be loved without earning it."

Summer, 2006

I was twenty-two that summer, finishing my third year of university, when my parents decided to renovate our home. With the house unlivable, we moved for a few months into the small clinic my father ran on the outskirts of Hangzhou — a two-story wooden building where I'd spent the first six years of my life, its ground floor smelling faintly of herbal medicine, its upstairs attic now our temporary bedroom.
That summer moved slowly, the way childhood summers do. Cicadas droned in the trees. The air after rain smelled like wet earth and cut grass. I could hear kids playing outside in the evenings, and for a moment it felt like I'd stepped back into memories I hadn't touched since I was seven.
Every morning I woke to the sound of street vendors calling out their wares — the whole town seemed to start its day at the breakfast stalls. I'd shuffle down in flip-flops, hair a mess, and buy whatever looked good: sticky rice cakes, scallion pancakes for my father, a bowl of warm tofu pudding, small dumplings still steaming in their baskets. My mother would be a few stalls down, picking out vegetables so fresh they still had dirt on the roots.
Walking back with my arms full one morning, I noticed a scruffy orange-and-white cat rubbing against my father's pant leg by the clinic door. I crouched down to say hello. He spun around, startled, and studied me — my face, then the bags in my hands, clearly weighing something — before darting off without a word.
"Ha. Silly cat," I laughed, and thought nothing more of it.
At lunch, the smell of my father's signature braised fish filled the house. "Time to eat!" he called. Starving after a morning of studying, I bolted for the table — and nearly tripped over the same cat, who'd apparently followed the smell of fish just as fast as I had. I reached to shoo him away. "Go on, go — what do you think you're doing?"
He paused, looked past me toward my father emerging from the kitchen, and stayed put.
"He comes every day at mealtime. Leave him be — I've got a bowl ready," my father said, setting down a bowl of rice mixed with fish and broth in a corner that was clearly, unmistakably, his corner.
The cat all but dove into the bowl, eating like he hadn't seen food in days. I stood there, mouth open, half-laughing. "Slow down, you're going to choke—"
He, of course, ignored me completely. Within minutes, the bowl looked cleaner than if it had been washed. My parents and I couldn't stop laughing.
I had no idea, that morning, that I'd just met the better part of the next seventeen years of my life.

Becoming Family

Within a week, he'd made himself a fixture outside the clinic — showing up promptly for every meal, chasing off any other cat or dog that dared approach, as if announcing to the whole street: this one's mine.
He warmed up to me too, in his own begrudging way. I'd tug his tail, poke his ears, and he'd shoot me a look somewhere between contempt and pity, as if to say, are you quite done being childish?
One evening after dinner, while I was reading in my room, I heard scratching outside the window. I opened it to find him perched on the roof tiles — and before I could react, he leapt straight in, leaving two muddy paw prints across my open book. He climbed onto the foot of my bed, and when I didn't push him off, he curled up and fell asleep like it was nothing new.
"You really do just invite yourself in, don't you. Get down, you're filthy."
He ignored me, wandered the room once, then jumped back out the window and disappeared into the night.
Over the following days, he came and went unpredictably. And somewhere in that unpredictability, my irritation quietly turned into something else — anticipation. Was he coming tonight? Would he be curled at my feet by eleven? I hadn't noticed it happening, but I'd started telling him the things I couldn't say out loud to my parents, or even to my closest friends.

The Night He Became Nomi

I fell in love that first year of college. But by the time graduation was closing in, that relationship — and the pressure of figuring out my career — had me more anxious than I'd ever been. There were mornings I cried alone, quietly, not wanting anyone to see.
One of those mornings, he pushed the half-open window with his head, climbed in, and sat by my bed, just watching me. I looked back at him, and the tears I'd been holding back finally came.
He climbed onto my pillow, lay down facing me, and pressed one small paw gently against my cheek — as if trying to wipe the tears away himself. I ended up telling him everything: every worry I'd been carrying, in one long, messy stream. His eyes moved from concern, to focus, to something that looked, impossibly, like understanding.
"Should I give you a name? From now on — you're Nomi."
From that night on, Nomi came to my room almost every evening, no matter how late. He'd curl up quietly at the foot of my bed and stay. He even dropped his usual territorial instincts, occasionally bringing along Lulu, the neighbor's golden retriever, to wait with him outside the clinic for me to come home.

Goodbye, and a Reunion

When the renovation finally finished, it was time to move back — and time for me to head back to school. Everything was returning to its old rhythm.
As my parents packed for the move, I quietly wondered if I could bring Nomi with us. I already knew what the answer would be when I asked my mother.
"Absolutely not. Who's going to take care of him back there?" Her tone left no room for negotiation.
Nomi, for his part, seemed entirely unbothered — or maybe cats just are that composed about everything. I picked him up and held him close. "Nomi, I'm going home. Will you miss me? I'll come back to see you." He wriggled free and wandered off to play with a little girl's shoelace tassel at the clinic entrance.
"No heart at all," I sighed. He glanced back at me, as if to say, don't be dramatic. It's not like you're never coming back.
The first weekend after school started, I rushed back to the clinic. "Where's Nomi?" I asked my father.
He just smiled. "He's hiding. Go find him yourself."
I searched the attic, the back room — nowhere. I finally sat down in an old armchair in the back room to catch my breath. The moment I sat, Nomi burst out from a nearby cardboard box and leapt straight into my lap. Before I could even process it, he pressed himself against me, one paw resting on my chest — a gesture that felt, unmistakably, like a hug from someone who'd missed me.
I'll admit it: I was completely undone. And a little bit onto his tricks, too.
There was no way I could leave him behind again. I spent the next weeks quietly wearing my parents down.
My mother held firm — until my father, who'd never quite grown out of his own soft heart, gave in. On a stormy night, he braved the rain with a sturdy canvas bag and brought Nomi home himself. Judging by Nomi's wide, startled eyes and thoroughly disheveled fur when he arrived, my father clearly hadn't given him any advance notice about the plan.
But nothing kept Nomi down for long. Ten minutes of sulking later, he was back to his usual self — and my mother, who'd sworn this would never happen, quietly became the person who spoiled him most in the entire household.
From then on, my life had a new permanent member. Picking out little surprises for him — a new bowl, a collar, a tiny sweater for New Year's, a grooming brush — became one of my favorite things to do.

A Witness to Everything

Looking back, Nomi was present for nearly every major chapter of my life.
In 2008, I fell in love again. My boyfriend became Nomi's self-appointed rival — competing for the same chair, the same food, the same attention. Nomi never quite forgave him for it, greeting his every visit with an unmistakable eye-roll. He'd wedge his entire body into whatever space remained rather than concede the good seat, sulking the whole time in a way that was somehow both petty and completely endearing.
In 2011, I got married. As "family of the bride," I'd bought him a small red bell in advance. On the wedding morning, while I did my makeup, my mother fastened the bell around his neck and brushed his coat until it shone, both of them waiting for the wedding procession to arrive. He was, by all accounts, both plump and devastatingly handsome that day — even the wedding photographer couldn't resist a few extra shots of him.

In 2013, my daughter was born. As her self-appointed "cat uncle," Nomi took the role seriously — keeping watch by her crib like a true family member, tolerating her clumsy, grabby toddler hands as she got older with far more patience than his expression let on. She'd make him the sole audience for her made-up "concerts," and he'd sit through every one of them, visibly exasperated but never once walking away.

Being Forgotten, Without Meaning To

Married life with a young child meant relearning how to live. Nothing dramatic happened — the days just filled up, quietly, relentlessly.
In 2014, I started a new job, managing a team, traveling for work, all while trying to hold together a home and a growing daughter. Visits back to my parents' house grew fewer and further between — down to holidays, if that. And with them, the time I had left for Nomi shrank too.
I never felt like I was neglecting anyone. I was just running forward, chasing a career and ambitions that felt, at the time, urgent and important. It wasn't until one visit — distracted by a work call, half-listening — that Nomi came over wanting to be fed, and I told him, without really thinking, "Go eat on your own."
It happened a few more times before I really saw it: Nomi, moving slower now, his once-quick body dragging a little as he lowered his head to his bowl alone. That was the moment it hit me — I hadn't been paying attention. Not really. Not for a long time.
Then my phone rang again, and I was pulled straight back into everything else.

One Last Goodbye

By early 2023, Nomi's health had visibly declined. My mother worried constantly about his appetite and digestion. We took him to several vets, and each time, the answer was the same: this is just what old age looks like.
Then, one Wednesday night, my mother called. Her voice was shaking. "Nomi's not doing well. He hasn't eaten or had water in two days."
I dropped everything and drove straight to her house.
He was lying weakly on his little blanket printed with yellow flowers, breathing shallow, quiet breaths. I knelt beside him and gently stroked his forehead. He opened his eyes and looked at me.
"Does it hurt, sweetheart? I'm here."
He closed his eyes, slowly. My mother and I stayed with him, quietly, until his breathing stopped for good.
He had been with us for seventeen years.
The next morning, my mother and I brought him to a pet memorial service. After the ceremony was complete, I cut a small lock of his fur and had it set into a keepsake pendant — something to carry with me, so it would feel like Nomi was still close. I hope he's somewhere wonderful now. And I hope, somehow, we get to meet again.

Where HerKin Began

For the next three years, I kept Nomi's memory carefully tucked away. He was never just a pet to me — he was a quiet source of light in a life where I'd learned, early on, to be careful about showing love, and where being loved without conditions was rare. What he gave me — patient, uncomplicated, entirely unearned love — filled something in me I hadn't known was empty. I spent those three years scrolling back through old photos of him on my phone, letting that be enough.
In 2026, I turned forty-two. By then, I'd mastered every role expected of me — wife, mother, daughter, executive — and had finally become the daughter my parents were proud of, the woman who could "have it all," career and family both. But somewhere in all of it, I'd never once stopped to ask myself: who do I actually want to be?
The pace of those years had worn me down more than I let on. And it hit me, all at once — if I had another forty years ahead of me, I didn't want to spend them living up to everyone else's expectations. I wanted to live up to my own.
So in early 2026, I left the career I'd spent two decades building, and founded HerKin — a brand built from everything Nomi taught me, designed with care for women navigating midlife, and for the pets who love them without asking for anything back. Starting with home textiles, made to bring a little warmth and unexpected joy to both of you.

Care for you. Care for the bond you share.