We don’t know where she came from. Theories range from litter of a feral cat, possibly a farm cat, to someone dumping some kittens they didn’t want.
We do know that she went around every other house in my Grandparents’ street, before she found the suckers at number 3. Nobody else would let the howling little kitten in, but my Grandparents did.
Posters went up, but nobody came to claim her. So she gained the name “Honey” both for the golden colour of her ginger portions and for a peculiar naming convention where every pet my Grandparents owned had a name ending in “Y”.
Her life with them started as an indoor/outdoor cat, but that soon proved itself to be problematic. She had issues with other cats. Namely, that she didn’t believe they belonged in her sphere of existence. So she fought. If locked inside and another cat dared come near the window, she would hurl herself bodily at the windows, hissing and spitting. In the end Grandma and Grandpa had to put foil on the bottoms of their windows, to stop her being able to see out. They had to make her indoor only, create a cat run at the side of the house and give her a kitty door out of the bathroom window so she had somewhere to go.
She had a temper. Boy howdy. Petting could lead to licking, and if you didn’t heed the warning of the lick, she’d turn and bite, then run away. She would bait the dogs by sauntering around under their noses, then turning around and belting them when they got up to chase her. She was fussy with food and brought spiders into the house. She had a scar on her back from where she’d lost fur in a fight, and a lump we always suspected was the remnants of an abcess from her fighting days.
But when she wanted to love you, she *loved *you. Not a small cat, she’d jump up into your lap, turn around a few times then settle down and give the loudest purr I’d ever heard. At the top of each “purr” she’d give an odd little squeak, like a rusty gate swinging in the wind. We never did oil that squeak out.
She’d sleep on the foot of Grandpa’s bed, or crawl under the covers with Grandma. She had a rubber snake she liked to carry around the house, chasing and pouncing on it until one day she bit the head off. She loved tuna tins and would sit there licking one clean for hours. When you did something she didn’t like, she had a meow that she’d bark out that sounded just like “No”. She’d argue back if you told her off.
After I returned from Sydney in 2004, my Grandparents decided to sell up their house and move to a retirement community just outside town. No pets were allowed, especially not cats, so we inherited Honey. She came and lived in the converted shed apartment with us, then moved with Husband and I into our first rental place together.
She owned the house. The pillows on the bed were hers to sleep on. The armchair in the computer room had to remain behind the curtain, next to the window, so she could climb up and sit on the sill. The various feral cats who came to mark our doorstep would be seen off with hissing and puffing and howling, until they fled her righteous wrath.
She’d hardly ever seen a vet. Once to be desexed when she was a kitten, a few times for vaccinations over the years. She liked fish-based wet food, hated meat-based, but loved to eat scraps off of plates. She especially loved bowls that contained icecream, custard or cream. These would have to be watched at all times, lest one come back from a bathroom break to find her head down in your pudding. She liked to eat ear wax, and had an impeccable sense of time. You could set your watch by her coming up to you at about five to tell you it was dinner time and why hadn’t she been fed yet?
About three or four months ago, we found blood on one of our pillows. A vet check showed a broken tooth that the gum had slightly grown over and become inflamed on. Apart from that and a very mild elevation in certain kidney enzymes (apparently normal in older cats), we were told she was the healthiest 15-17 year old cat they’d ever seen. She came back from the vet and for a few hours couldn’t walk in a straight line. It was funny, though she didn’t think so.
Over the last few weeks, I’d noticed her eating less. But she’s always had a habit of being fussy with her foods, changing what she deems ‘acceptable’ to eat. But this was different. I’d go through foods, she’d eat scant mouthfuls and then appear to lose interest. She wouldn’t even eat a tin of tuna, her absolute favourite treat in the whole wide world. She started sleeping more, sleeping through dinner time. I’d have to wake her up to go and eat, and then she’d still only eat a mouthful then go back to sleep. She started crying if she was in another room from us, and stopped grooming herself properly.
I called the vet this morning. They said they only had an appointment at 1745 on Monday. That was fine, but then they called me back and said an appointment had been cancelled for 1130. So I called Grandma and Grandpa, who came over to pick us up. They said to me she was looking skinnier, that she clearly wasn’t grooming herself properly. That she just wasn’t herself. She didn’t argue when we put her in the cage.
She hates the cage.
I knew then that we’d have to let her go. If she doesn’t have the will to fight the cage, she’s not my Honeycat any more.
We took her in to the vet. She struggled a little when she was being held on the table, but otherwise she just seemed to want to be left in the cage where she could lie down. She’d lost 1kg since the last time they saw her in late August, nearly a third of her body weight. She was dehydrated although she’d been drinking, and her heart seemed to be developing a murmur.
The vet said that it’s possibly something that could be dealt with with medication. But they don’t know if it was her kidneys, her thyroid or something else. The sudden change in behaviour and weight told them it was likely to be something big. There’d have to be blood tests, IV fluids, investigations, more time spent at the vet clinic.
She made it to 15 or 16 or 17 without all this. I couldn’t put her through it now, for the chance to extend her life for a few months, with no guarantee they’d find what was wrong or be able to improve her quality of life.
So at 1130 this morning I let them take my Honeycat away. My grandparents were crying. I was crying too. She looked so skinny and tired as they took her out of the room.
I love you Honey. I hope where you’ve gone there’s no other cats and plenty of pillows to sleep on.
