Cally

My beautiful Cally died this morning.

Unlike my other cats, she was not with me from kittenhood.
Unlike my other cats, I know exactly when and where she was born, and who her parents were.
Unlike my other cats she had long hair.
Unlike my other cats she was tortoiseshell and white, not black and white.

I talk as if she was one among hundreds, but in fact she was just the fourth of the five cats in my life. Because we had a very fierce terrier into whose home no new kitten could be introduced after Fred (the first) died, my twenties were cat-free, but for most of the last half century there has always been a cat - usually two. Both Freds were allotment cats rescued from the jaws of death (cat flu and drowning respectively) who came to us aged somewhere between two and three months old, while Annie and Albert were ferral kittens aged three and six weeks.

Cally came to me from Becky who had had her from the very start - she was actually present at the birth. he neighbour felt safer with a qualified midwife in attendance.) When Becky's marriage broke up, she found herself unable to care for her and a new baby, and Cally came to me for a few weeks while she got sorted out. The 'new baby' is now fifteen (and about nine feet tall!) and Cally remained with me for the rest of her long life.

In her youth she was a mighty hunter: uninterested in small birds and mice, her chosen prey was rabbits and pheasants. Once, much to my embarrassment, she chose to kill and eat a rabbit in full view of a group of children I was teaching at the time. On another occasion she was to be found on the grass verge plucking a pheasant when his lordship (owner of all the pheasants around here) came to call.

She was more-or-less unaquainted with vets since she never had a day's illness in her life and only ever visited them for routine injections and once long ago when she was spayed.

When she came to live with me I had two cats, Fred 2nd and Annie. Fred ever the parfait gentilcat welcomed her with open paws. Annie was vociferous in her dislike and suspicion of another female in her territory. Eight and a half years ago Annie was run over, and Fred went into a decline and died of grief three weeks later. Albert (from the same ferral colony as Annie and probably a great-great-great etc.-nephew) joined the household, although I feared for his safety remembering how Cally and Annie had carried on. Cally's reaction was amazing "Oh a kitten, a dear little kitten: is he mine? Can I keep him? Let me love him, and groom him, and teach him everything I know." And she remained his devoted aunt and foster mother ever after.

On May 1st this year she celebrated her 18th birthday with my nephew Jacob (just an hour younger than she). Since then she has been gradually failing as her sight and hearing faded. Until yesterday, however, she clung tenaciously to life, eating her food with obvious enjoyment, as well as remaining pretty well in contol of her bodily functions - it has only been in the last few weeks that a few mistakes have been made which, after more than eighteen years of immaculate cleanliness, can easily be forgiven.

Yesterday she didn't want to eat. She took a few steps and fell over. I put her on her cushion close under the radiator late last night. She was still there this morning, breathing but insensible. I went shopping for father's birthday, and when I came back she was still lying in the same position, but no longer breathing.

This afternoon Jacob (her human twin) buried her, wrapped in the shawl Becky knitted for her to sleep on when she was a kitten, under the laurel with the other cats.