TillyCat

Back in April, I came home to discover a cat sat on our doorstep.

She sat and purred and let me tickle her under the chin. Very friendly, I thought. Very cute.

Half an hour later I came back outside to find she was still there. I didn’t want to feed her, because that would mean she’d never go back home and we’d end up with a cat.

Ha. You all know how this is going to end up, I can tell.

You see, we weren’t really cat people. Our in-laws have dogs. My brother has dogs. The only reason we didn’t have dogs is that we’re out all day.

That evening, a neighbour came around to ask if we knew who the little ginger cat belonged to. We didn’t, but said ok, bring her in here for tonight. Don’t want her outside in the cold. We put notices up on local facebook groups, notes though the neighbours’ doors. She clearly Belonged To Someone, and Someone would come and find her.

The next day our neighbour came over to see if we’d seen the cat, as her friend worked for Cats Protection and had come to pick her up.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s asleep on our sofa…”

And so it was that TillyCat moved in and adopted us. The neighbour asked around on streets bordering our street, the cat wasn’t microchipped and turned out was in need of a lot of dental work. The vet thought she was about 8-10 years old, well-looked after (apart from the teeth).

She liked living with us, it seemed. She’d move from fleecy blanket to lap, to sofa.

She’d sleep with one paw over her face, as if to say “the light is too bright, humans.”

She’d sleep by the front door, in a bed that we bought for her. In the morning she’d be there with a “MRAAAAOW.”

She taught us how to speak Cat. The first “MRAAAOW” was “Human, I require food pls”.

The second “MRAAAOW”, whilst apparently the same as the first, meant “now go open the curtains in the lounge as I have some sleeping to catch up on.”

She was very good at sleeping, was TillyCat.

She loved playing with Mouse On A String, and would lie on the floor and be all FIERCE with it, with her one good tooth. And if you dangled Mouse On A String just right, she’d pull herself along the floor to ‘chase’ it.

She liked to know what you were up to.

One day I got home from work to see her sat at the side of the road next to a crow. I kid you not, it looked like they were having a conversation. TillyCat had made a friend. When I got to the house, she wandered over with her friend.

Then we went on holiday. The in-laws and our neighbour would look after TillyCat, and take turns to feed her, or just pop in and be a lap to sit on for a bit.

Whilst we were away various messages were exchanged. “Having a great time. How’s the cat?” Or “weather here is lovely. Hope TillyCat is ok!”

The other parts of the messages were superfluous, of course. We were assured that TillyCat was fine, merely plotting revenge for our return.

We got home late on a Wednesday evening, tired from 36 hours of travelling. Opened the door to find TillyCat asleep on a chair in the dining room. She lifted her head and blinked, then let out a “MRAAAOW” which very clearly meant “and WHERE do you think you’ve been?”

I picked her up to find her a bit… chubbier than when we’d left. We wondered if she was pregnant. Or if the neighbour and the in-laws had mistaken the Dreamies for the dry cat biscuits.

We took her to the vet on, where they confirmed that she wasn’t definitely wasn’t pregnant. But she had a lot of fluid in her belly and needed a scan.

The following day the worst was confirmed. She had a mass on her pancreas, and a build-up of fluid. The vet drained half a litre off to make her more comfortable, but said that she really didn’t have long.

We brought her home. She sat on my lap and watched Pirates of the Carribean, spaced off her little kitty ears on whatever drugs they’d given her. She’d had her belly shaved and was feeling sorry for herself.

She definitely wasn’t right. She didn’t want to play with Mouse On A String. She didn’t really want her food. She just wanted to snooze, and snuggle.

That week we let her sleep in our bed, and she’d crawl underneath the duvet, snuggle up close and sleep with her head on my arm as a pillow.

She knew. She knew it was time.

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”

Anatole France

For such a small cat, she left a huge space in our house. Even now I expect to see her come mooching into the lounge, pause by the door and decide which lap she wants to spend the evening on.

We were lucky. Of all the houses, she chose ours to come and spend her last few months. She showed us that we really were cat people.

TillyCat. The best of cats.