Yes, we love the four cats that now share our home.

And we’re not alone. About six of every 10 Americans report living with a pet in their household, and a rather astonishing 95 percent of those consider their pets members of the family, according to a 2015 Harris Poll.

Other research shows young couples are among the most likely to adopt a pet. We were no exception.

Just a few weeks after getting married and returning to Hawaii to enter graduate school, we adopted a tiny gray kitten from a pet store in Ala Moana Center. We were camped temporarily in my parents’ small house while looking for a rental of our own, and the kitten moved right in and boldly took over.

After a few weeks, she moved with us into a high-rise apartment building in Kaimuki. Before she was a year old, we adopted a second kitten, a stray found wandering and crying in a construction area near our building during a heavy rain.The two cats bonded and remained very close as long as they lived.

Objectively, both were generic, everyday gray tiger cats. But in our eyes they were special.

Kitten No. 2 was the first to die. She had lived with us and been part of our lives for about 15 years. There are very few humans, if any, we ever spent that much time with.

We were confronted with a common problem that isn’t talked about much: What do you do when one of your pets dies?

Over the years, we welcomed many cats into our lives, and those small containers slowly accumulated.

With all the world’s problems and pain, it seems almost embarrassingly indulgent to dwell over the death of pets. Almost, but not really. Our relations with our animals play a bit role in making us human. No shame there.

And so we faced the problem. We certainly couldn’t just put our cat’s body in the trash, or abandon her at the vet to be disposed of anonymously. We were in a condo and couldn’t bury her in the yard. So she was cremated, and her ashes returned to us in a small plastic bag, wrapped in a sheet of paper, and closed in a small glass jar.

That was about three decades ago. Over the years, we welcomed many cats into our lives, and those small containers slowly accumulated. When we moved into a house in Kaaawa, we found space for them on a bookshelf next to our bed. Lifespans being what they are, we aged, but our cats aged faster, and our collection of small containers kept growing.

Last year, we moved back into the house where I grew up and where we lived briefly with that first kitten so many years ago.

And last weekend, we decided it was time to welcome that first cat, and the many others that followed, to our new home. It was, it finally felt, a responsibility too long deferred.

On Sunday afternoon, I fetched a box in from the garage. In it were more than a dozen small containers, each with the ashes of one of the cats that lived with us over the years.  There had been other cats that simply disappeared, and forever remain simply “missing.” But the ones in the box were those that lived, and died, in our company.

It was late afternoon. The shadows cast by the two large mango trees were spreading toward the house as we moved out onto the deck overlooking our back yard, armed with a pair of scissors, a screwdriver, and a bucket half filled with soil.

We solemnly picked up the containers, one by one. Each had been thoughtfully labeled with the name of one of the cats that had shared our lives. One by one, in the approximate order in which they were adopted, we opened the containers, pulled out the small plastic bags,  and emptied them into the bucket.

After that first glass jar, the rest were small metal boxes, some with images of cats on them, others with flowers, or just colorful patterns. The boxes were different sizes and shapes, some shiny and new, others old and rusty. I pried the rusty ones open with the screwdriver. The scissors cut open the plastic bags, freeing the contents. In the box, we also found several carefully saved condolence cards signed by the vets and their staff.

One by one, we moved through the generations of cats, remembering each of them, bringing their lives into focus by retelling their stories, recollecting and savoring special moments, happily shedding tears, then mixing their ashes into the dirt.

When we were done, we enjoyed both a glass of wine, and decades of feline memories, now brushed off, shined up, and shared anew. Then we sat back and let the shared silence take over.

And the next morning, all of our former cats became part of our new yard, the soil mixed with that being used to add new plants along the side and front of our house. A bit here, a bit there.

All of our cats are now here at home.