Tag: goodbye

2369: Farewell to Clover, Last of the Rats

Hi Clover. You left us today, and that made me very sad. I’m sure it made you sad, too, but we both knew that it was time for you to go. I actually thought you were going to leave us yesterday, as you looked tired and miserable, but you hung on until today, because you’d always been a stubborn little thing. I’d like to think you clung on to life for a bit longer because you didn’t want to leave us, either — as the last of our rats, you’d be leaving us alone — but I guess I’ll never know how you really felt.

I can tell you how we felt, though, and how I felt. We loved you very much, and you will be sorely missed. Night-time won’t be the same without the sound of you scuffling around in your cage in the dark and eating things in the crunchiest way possible while we’re trying to sleep. And I’ll miss the way you’d always come up to the door of the cage when we came to see you — not just because we’d usually give you a treat, but because you liked our company, too.

I won’t speak for Andie, as I’m sure she has her own things she wants to say to you in private, but I’ll tell you how I felt. I’ll tell you a secret, in fact; out of the five rats we’ve had over the last few years, I loved each and every one of you to absolute pieces, but you were — don’t tell the others — my favourite. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you in the pet shop. You were patterned a bit like your predecessor Lara, who had passed away and left her cagemate Lucy all alone, but you had an adorable scruffiness to your fur; I could never quite tell if you were actually scruffy or if it was just that you had slightly longer, fluffier fur than other rats.

Whatever the reason, I knew I wanted you to be our friend, along with your friend Socks, whose own unique adorable feature was the fact her shiny grey-brown coat had an enticingly fluffy white bit on her belly. And while, like all rats, it took you a while to get out of that initial stage of seeming absolute terror at everything, you quickly became friendly, getting on well both with us and with Lucy, by now an old lady rat who had clearly been pining for some company ever since Lara left us.

Out of you and Socks, I could never quite tell if you were “the smart one” or not. Socks always seemed to get up to more mischief than you, but I’m pretty sure you did your own scheming on the sly when we weren’t looking. You certainly knew how to give us an irresistible, pleading look that would almost always result in you getting a treat of some description, but I like to think you thought of others too. You were always there for me when I needed you, and when I wanted to talk — when things were going badly, when I felt all alone, or when it was the middle of the night and I just couldn’t get to sleep — you’d always come and listen, never judging, never answering back (and, I choose to believe, not just because you couldn’t) and always making me feel better.

I’m sorry life became such hard work for you towards the end, but I’m grateful that you hung on for us as long as you did. You were well over two and a half years old when you left us, which is super-old in rat terms, and I’d like to think that you stuck around as long as you did, despite your declining health, because you knew how much you were loved, both by Andie and by me.

I’ll miss you, Clover, just as I miss Socks, Lucy, Lara and Willow every day. I love you all very much and I hope that wherever you go after you leave us, you have a happy time, free of fear and adversity, full of treats and bursting with eternal joy.

Goodbye, Clover. And thank you for being such a special part of my life. I’ll never forget you.

An Open Goodbye

The blogosphere is undoubtedly chock-full of posts like the one I’m about to make but that doesn’t make any of them less meaningful to the people involved. While the words that the writer commits to “paper” (for want of a better word) may mean nothing to casual readers or people just “passing through”, the writer themself can feel better simply by the act of getting them out in the open. Yes, it is completely and utterly self-indulgent, but that’s what I feel as I begin to write this, and I hope you, the reader, will understand that. Normal service will resume shortly and I’ll get back to enthusing about games, using bad words and ranting about the state of the country. But for now, this.

Yesterday I received the sad news that our family’s cat, who lived with my parents, died after being run over. The full meaning of these words didn’t really hit me until late in the evening, and more so today when I found myself unable to face even contemplating speaking to anyone else for a good proportion of the day. I’d like to take a moment to share a few thoughts and memories in the absence of a “funeral”. Some may wonder at the amount of attention being given to “just a cat”, but if you think that, you’ve probably never owned a beloved family pet and lost them. A family pet who is loved as much as Kitty was is absolutely a member of the family, and never “just a pet”.

There have been two cats in my life. The first, Penny, was, according to my parents, my nursemaid when I was very young. If I was ill, she’d sit outside my bedroom door “on guard”. If I cried, she’d come and “tell” my folks. She was part of the family, right down to sitting at the table to have Christmas dinner with us – because if there was one thing she loved, it was human food.

Penny died of old age one night about eleven years ago. She knew it was going to happen. She sat down in front of our heating vent in the hallway of our house and stayed there for the evening. We said goodnight to her and went to bed, leaving her some water and food where she was. When we came down in the morning, she had passed away quietly. We said our goodbyes and buried her in the garden beneath a cat statue, where she sleeps now.

The house was quiet for a while without a cat. Very quickly, our family decided that we didn’t want to be without a cat – it was just too quiet after so many years of having Penny – so we took a ride up to the local animal sanctuary to meet the candidates.

Kitty (who already knew her name, so there was no hope of ever changing that!) was a tiny little thing who was very nervous when we met her. She was cute and friendly, despite her nerves, however, so we chose her and took her home. It took time for her to come out of her shell – for the longest time, she was afraid even to go outside. Apparently, her previous home had had dogs who had terrorised the poor thing into submission. As time went on, however, she grew more confident and also grew physically from the tiny cat we had picked up from Wood Green animal shelter into a rather larger one!

She was a very friendly cat. She made an effort to make people like her – even self-professed “cat-haters”. She would simply jump in their lap when they came to visit, sit there and purr until even they admitted that she wasn’t that bad, after all. She would also jump in your lap for a cuddle at the most inopportune times – having dinner, attempting to write an email, reading a book… If you were in a chair and you had a lap, you were fair game.

It’s a fair bet that wherever she is now (I have it on good authority that while all dogs go to heaven, all cats go to Valhalla) she’s jumping in the lap of someone, rolling over and purring contentedly. I can just see her lying in a Valkyrie’s lap with a big silly grin on her face.

And so this post is to say a very public goodbye to Kitty Davison. You will be missed sorely by all who knew you and loved you, and I hope Penny takes good care of you.

Rest in peace.