Kiya

Many years ago, before we were married, the then future Mrs L had a grey kitten she called Penfold. At six months old he was run over and killed. The future Mrs L was inconsolable. This kitten had been special – he was bright and inquisitive. He was also very much a people cat. When I called round a few days later, she had another kitten. Also a grey but this time a tabby, she called Truffle. I thought it all a bit soon, but she was determined as the pain of losing Penfold was so acute, only another kitten would ease it.

Truffle couldn’t have been less like Penfold in character. In contrast to Penfold’s sharp intelligence, Truffle was an amiable clown. He lived to thirteen when he succumbed to cancer in the summer of 1999. At that time, we thought it a respectable age, but since that time, we saw cats live to seventeen or eighteen. Indeed, I have one in the tribe who is seventeen and her daughter is sixteen.

I was reminded very much of Truffle ten years later with the arrival of Thutmose. Like Truffle he was a grey and like Truffle, he was last in the queue for brains, but had an affable nature and was a delight until I lost him to cancer in January this year.

His half brother, Louis, I lost a couple of weeks ago also to cancer. But it was in the day or so after that I recalled how Mrs L felt that time in 1986. Why did Louis’ death affect me so much? After all, I have loved all of the cats that have shared my life, so what was different about this one?

Louis walked into our lives of his own volition. More than that, though, he went out of his way to make himself welcome, not just with us but with the existing resident cats. He was a character that other cats liked. That he befriended Cleo, our then snooty queen who didn’t much like anyone – apart from us, because we could open tins – was an achievement in itself. He was a lifelong gigolo with an eye for the ladies and he would always be found snuggled up to one of them, whether they wanted it or not. He was a charmer, a cad, a likeable rogue. That and the link with the time I spent in France with Mrs L, all of these things came into sharp focus, I suppose. And I felt a loss that could only be eased one way.

This, then, is Kiya.

 

13 Comments

  1. Even though I’m about as religious as a bathplug, I still believe that if there’s a heaven then these fellows will be waiting for us at the gates handing out admission slips.

    • Mrs L had beliefs. I wish I’d been able to share them, but I don’t unfortunately. Beliefs do give people comfort of a sort. A comfort denied those of us who merely see oblivion after this vale of tears. That’s a bit bleak, isn’t it?

  2. What a lovely kitten. The two I have left are getting old now and, while I want to outlive them , I. Would be too old to get another cat. I always like to imagine when the time comes my late husband will be waiting at ‘Rainbow Bridge’ with all our cats. I know it’s just a Poem but it’s a comforting thought.

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