Memories of Muffin…
The first six weeks with her were exhausting. That little ball of fur and claws had endless energy and wanted to play constantly. Then a friend sent her kitten to stay with us for a few weeks, and I discovered that two kittens are better than one. They wore each other out instead of me. Peace was a similar age, and I recall having both balls of fluff sitting on my knee, purring.
As they grew it became difficult to fit both on my knee, even though they never grew very large, both being dainty little ladies. Peace would sit on my knee, and Muffin on my shoulder. She needed to be the highest in the room.
Peace never did go home. She and Muffin were lifelong frenemies, comfortable with each other but rivals for the attention of their humans.
Muffin developed an imperious attitude that was quite at odds with her name. I think if she’d chosen for herself she’d have been a Regina or Majesty or Highness. She was a benign dictator though, rewarding my loyal service with scratchy little kisses on my chin and a purr that was reserved for only the most special people. She strolled out to greet visitors and permitted them to admire her beauty.
At night she decided our bedtime was 11pm and if I sat up beyond that time, she commanded me to get to bed - first with her yowly Burmese voice, and if I continued to disobey she’d jump up on the shelf and pointedly push objects off. When I got up to stop her, she’d race to the bedroom door and look at me, yowling.
Bed really was her favorite place. I’d wake up in the morning and she’d be under the covers, snuggled in close. Peace would be sitting on top of me. Heaven help me if I needed to get up in a hurry, because they’d fairly well have me trapped. Wednesdays were a big highlight in young Muffin’s week because that’s when the bed linen got changed. I’d put the fresh fitted sheet on and there’d be a lump under it, ready to rumble. We’d have a wrestle through the sheet for a while, then she’d come out and sit on top of it, ready for the quilt to be thrown over her. Sometimes she’d just stay in the bed and nap for a couple of hours.
One night I heard a smashing noise in the kitchen. I got up in a panic and went out to see. Muffin strolled out of the computer room with an expression that said “I heard something too, Mum. What was that?”. In the kitchen I found a drinking glass on the bench, broken in half. Completely baffled as to how this glass spontaneously broke, I examined it closely and found a tuft of brown fur caught along the break. My guess is she had her head in it and somehow got stuck it something, managed to break it getting her head out and then raced through the house to the computer room, coming out when she heard me with her innocent and curious expression to throw me off. My Muffin was nothing if not a diabolical genius.
She was obsessed with Bobby pins. I must have bought a million over the last 14 years. She would steal them and kick them around, slipping and chasing them. If they didn’t go under the fridge or some other heavy piece of furniture, she’d place them in her food bowl for safekeeping. For years I thought Peace’s habit of kicking kibble on to the floor to eat it was to avoid getting a mouthful of metal, but it was actually because Peace has an aversion to sticking her face in a bowl - give her a flat plate and she’ll happily eat off it, Bobby pins or no.
She could be the most surprising creature at times. When Peace had a litter of kittens I feared jealousy from Miss I-need-to-be-the-centre-of-attention but I completely underestimated her. She was as sweet with those kittens as their own mother was and would climb in to look after them while poor exhausted Peace dragged herself out for a drink and a snack. She’d groom them and cuddle them like a pro, though she never had kittens of her own. It was beautiful to see what a devoted auntie she was.
During Muffin’s early years I was a frustrated wannabe Mum, and while I struggled with infertility she was my spoilt and indulged furbaby. When my children came along, Muffin went from being the centre of my universe to a very distant second to these squalling pink hairless kittens that were so slow, they couldn’t even walk at, like 10 weeks old. Despite their clear inferiority, I seemed very obsessed with them and their constant demands. Muffin never seemed jealous. She was very patient with them, even when they finally got mobile and tried sticking their fingers in her eyes and grabbing at her tail. She never drew her claws at them or bit then, even when they deserved it.
From 2009 I had a new partner, and Muffin did seem jealous of him. After she’d spent a night stomping across him to show her displeasure at his presence, he banned her from the bedroom. Thus began my internal struggle - I felt guilty enough that the demands of a toddler and a baby limited the time I could give Muffin, and now she was also locked out of cuddle time at night. Yet he was right - we had too many demands on us as new parents to be able to sacrifice sleep to a cat. I felt like I was letting her down.
In March last year we took a vacation and I packed Muffin and Peace off to mum’s house for the 10 days we would be gone. They never came home. After mum told me she was crying at the idea of giving them back, I asked her to keep them there. They adored my mum and I knew that not only did they get to sleep cuddled up with her at night, but that she was also very persuadable when it came to daytime naps too. She doted upon them, pouring out all her empty nest frustrations into her fur-grandbabies. It saddened me to not live with them, but it was the perfect living arrangement for them and I could still see them any time I wanted to.
When Mum gave me the news that Muffin had Inflammatory Bowel Disease and that the vet said it was time, I went to her and spent the afternoon with her. We took her to the vets together and, cuddled in my arms with my mum stroking her forehead and having into her eyes, she slipped away peacefully.
