Our eminently pretty little cat, Ruby, died on Wednesday. She was sixteen, which was a great age, and until the last couple of years of her life, had enjoyed both rude health and ruling the roost. She was adored particularly by Callum and Michael, whom she reciprocated in kind. I was a poor second after the Men became her all-important lovers.
Ruby came into my life in late January 2005. Her colouring and curiosity drew her to me whilst visiting the Cat Haven with Sian. A gorgeous mix of apricot, grey and white with inscrutable green eyes caught my attention. I hadn't had a cat since Coco the Siamese when I was a child, and Ruby was as far removed as possible from him in looks.
So, I took her home to the kids and Sascha, my young adult Weimaraner blunderdog. Sascha loved her on sight; Ruby took a few days to warm to this canine Gigantor. That's when I first heard her very distinctive Siamese-like cry. Somewhere, tucked into her DNA, was a smidgen of Coco.
She was quite the gypsy cat for the first eighteen months of her life. From Karrinyup in Perth to Tewantin on the Sunshine Coast, back to Perth, temporary digs in Padbury at Sian's and then to Marangaroo, all between October 2005 and April 2006.
When I was busily having a nervous breakdown, she began her quest for a slave who was slightly more stable. Having already been fond of Callum in the Karrinyup family home, she directed all her feline allure to him once he moved back in me in July 2006. Callum was delighted with his separate bachelor pad at the back of the property and Ruby was delighted to share the space with him, often refusing to leave when Callum went out and then waiting impatiently for him to return to her bosom.
She was less amused when the dog population steadily increased. Pip joined our family in winter 2007 and they formed a grudging mutual toleration of each other. The brief appearance and then the disappearance of a second beautiful cat, Captain Jack, barely ruffled her fur. I was convinced that she had taken out a contract against him as he vanished one day, never to be seen again.
Life continued as our private three-ringed circus. I entered into a romance with a Sicilian sociopath, who had several women dangling and a wife at home. I was only alerted to this situation when his wife ran my phone to track him down. Oops...Pip bit him twice. I should have paid attention.
Following a series of hilarious First Dates and a brief sojourn with a very nice and uber-boring New Zealander, I met Michael in May 2009. He had inherited Ruby the Beagle as a consequence of his wife dying and his daughter losing interest in the puppy. She would accompany him to my house and then she moved permanently in with me nine months later, three months before Michael began living with me.
This was a bitter pill for Madame Cat to swallow. She lost her name, as Ruby the Beagle was too dumb to take on another title and what was worse, she had to contend with three canine clowns. No wonder she chose the sanctity of Callum's room.
So, she began answering to a variety of other names, including Madame or Cattelle. Housesitters swore she responded to Puss. She lost her initial companion, Sascha and then Ruby the Beagle. I half-heartedly began calling her Ruby again, but not consistently.
Meanwhile, she had latched onto her second servant. On moving to Heavenly Beverley, she formed a bond with Michael that remained unbroken until her death. She talked to him in lengthy conversations, kneaded his legs, purred loudly in his lap or close to him on our bed. Michael was convinced he would have recovered from double pneumonia faster in 2014 if he's been allowed to have Ruby the cat with him. In the height of delirium, he was sure she was on his bed and stroked the sheet to comfort himself.
She was a brilliant mouser and even took down a young rabbit. I countered her hunting bird urges by placing a variety of bells on her collar. She would retaliate by losing her collar...repeatedly, along with her registration tag, painstakingly attached to one of the many collars she then discarded.
Only in the last years of her life did she begin to slow. Unbeknown to us, galloping blood pressure caused a bleed in one of her eyes, kidney damage and significant weight loss. The latter two symptoms were solved with medication and a specialist diet, but her eyesight continued to deteriorate. She began sleeping curled into Michael's armpit for protection. The litter tray took up residence in our bathroom, but with her sight, there were frequent misses. Her long life was winding down.
Sometime after Christmas, we believe she became totally blind. She no longer left the house and her anxiety was high all the time. She used her hearing and whiskers to find her way around inside, but she was fearful and unhappy and began spotting urine all over the floors.
Wednesday she had no interest in drinking and only a scant nibble of her favourite kibble. Feeling her way back to our bed, she climbed up and slept. I rang the vet. Graeme Penno, the most gentle and empathetic vet was on duty. We loaded her into her cat carrier at three o'clock. Even that was a breeze compared with her previous entrapments, which had usually involved hand-to-paw combat. She miaowed in protest and turned her back on me as we drove to Northam.
I met her with Graeme in the consulting room. The staff had inserted a cannula into a vein and wrapped it in a bright blue bandage. She lay on a bright blue mat, a perfect contrast to her colouring. We stroked to her, talked to her and said our goodbyes. I cried and Graeme's eyes were also damp. Afterwards, he curled her up into her sleeping pose and I hugged him as I left his room. Thank you to the team at the Northam vet hospital on the Goomalling Road who cared so much for her over the years.
Not to end on a sad note, Ruby, being our cat, left me with two exquisite reminders. I drove with cat hair up my nose all the way home and then discovered a puddle of her wee in my side of our wardrobe. I laughed out loud with love for our feisty Ruby.
Fly high, Cattelle.
On the couch...
Bye bye beautiful cat :(
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