iRelle

My beautiful cat died today. Of course, the term ‘beautiful’ is a bit of an overstatement – it’s one of those things that sounds right when you say it, but it never really applied to Possum. I doubt if anyone outside my family, even the staunchest of cat lovers, could say that she was beautiful in either looks or personality. She tended to be grumpy, impatient and had the most cutting way of completely ignoring you… but she was my cat. And I still called her ‘My Beautiful’ – always in a strongly spurious Italian accent. She seldom answered to anything, let alone her own name, but she had enough name to more than make up for it.

Her name was Possum. Possum Precious Chelsea ex-mousetrap (birdtrap) Ritson. I was about three years old when we got her, and I can still remember standing awe-struck, watching her eat her first meal. Mum told me not to put her off her food. I lugged her around the house, hoisted her out of her beanbag and generally gave her as much love as she’d put up with before scratching me and walking away. And as we grew up, her name grew too. I was always adamant that I called her Possum because it was a pet name Mum used for me sometimes. Mum is equally adamant that she didn’t. Chances are, she called me ‘possum’ once the week before we got the cat, and it was so unusual it stuck in my memory. The name Chelsea was a direct rip-off from my Aunty Whilma’s cat, and the ‘trap’ names were tributes – trophies of her skills as a hunter.

The thing is, Possum was old. Really old. She was almost 20, and that’s a LOT of cat years. But she’s always been there. My siblings grew up, moved out. But Possum was always there to come home to. We grew up together – she went through a teenage stage when I was still little, and I put up with her claws and her sullen moods. And when I was more than usually upset about something, she’d put up with my cuddling and my tears and let me hug her until I got over it. Most of all – I loved her. The last couple years she mellowed out – no more scratching and biting, fussier about her food, content to sit by the fire all day. And then as she got sick – a couple days at a time – I’d carry her around, find her food that she’d eat, keep her warm on my bed. It’s just so much a part of my routine to stop and pick her up as I pass her beanbag near the fire – and now I can’t.

The last few years she’s spent nearly every night inside on the foot of my bed. I’m lying in bed now, and my feet are still carefully skirting that spot, moving slowly so I don’t kick her, trying to find the little warm lump to heat my toes on. And it’s not there. There’s a hole on the end of my bed, and there’s a hole somewhere in the six-year-old-cat-cuddler part of me, too. I keep listening for her mournful miaow, and wanting to pick her up, scratch behind her ears, make her whistle out her excuse for a purr.

But there’s a hole.

You Might Like...