In memorial
Frikadellen ?/? 19?? – 24/12 2012
He wasn’t just a cat.
I want to write down the whole story.
The first time I saw him was a summer day when we were having coffee in our garden. He was sneaking around, meowed, begging for something to eat. He was totally black, just a little white wisp on his belly. He had no tail and only one ear. Of course we all wondered what’s happened to him but we didn’t feed him. We had a couple of cats before and we’d decided not to get another one. The next day he came back. We told him to go home to his family but he stayed in the neighborhood. So it went on for two weeks. We didn’t feed him or let him in to our house but when we one afternoon found him sleeping on our couch; we realized that he had chosen us for his new home.
So, we started to feed him, he was pretty thin at this time, and gave him love to see if we could get him to purr, which he didn’t for some reason. We put up notes in the neighborhood that told the owner to call and I contacted the police. We asked all the neighbors if someone knew where he lived but no one ever called… He became our cat and we soon realized he was a very special one. We had no toilet for him, he went out to do his needs, where, we never discovered. He had a language we could understand. A little “thick” for good morning, a “crroar” for dab me. A tiny “mew” for hello an a “meeow” for I’m hungry. When he saw another cat he sounded like a magpie or meowed with a very low pitch. When he felt sick he meowed in two notes “me – owe”. And of course he started to purr after a few weeks.
Every time we came home he run towards us and stopped at his favorite tree, clawed three times and then made a flip, landing on his back and showed his belly. “mrreow” … welcome home. If anyone were ill or sad he knew, and folded in ones lap. He followed when we took a walk and he even went with me to the forest search for mushrooms in the autumns. If one of us overslept, he woke us up with a friendly little good morning sound. After my father died he followed me to bed every night and stayed, purring, by my side until I felt asleep.
He went ill one day and we took him to the vet. At the hospital they told us he had a chip. We asked to get the information, at last we could find out where he came from… But the information on the chip was just the name of the cat and a place, no names of the owner or telephone number. (we were happy with that because we couldn’t think of leaving him back)
When we came home at Christmas Eve we had gifts for the cat to open. He got two small toys which he played with before he went out in the snow to pee. That’s the last we saw of him. He didn’t came back before we went to bed but we always have the door to the cellar open so he can go inside if it’s to cold. Before I went to bed I went out for a smoke and I saw a police car on our street. I noticed it because it’s very rear in our place. In the morning there’s still no cat so we looked everywhere inside the house and checked the cellar. In the afternoon I went out calling and searched for him with no success. I went to the neighbors and asked them if they had seen him and checked all the sheds to see that he wasn’t locked in somewhere. The next morning I came to think about the police car and called the police office and asked if they’ve heard anything about a car accident or something. They told me they had no information which is very strange to me now that I know what happened. I also called the animal hospital and asked if someone came to them with a cat without a tail. They told me no, which is also very strange, in fact a lie. I put up notes in the area with a description of the cat and my phone number and talked to some more neighbors. For two more days I searched before a man, John, called me. He told me that a man knocked on his door at one o’clock in the morning after Christmas Eve. The man had hit a cat with his car and thought it was John’s cat. They called the Police and they came and picked the up the cat and took him to the animal hospital, still alive with a broken leg (The same police car I saw on our street…). And here’s my question, Why couldn’t either the police or the animal hospital have told me that when I called? So I called the animal hospital again and first they said “we haven’t found your cat” but I didn’t give up I said that I knew the police took him there and then they told me they had put him to sleep because they couldn’t find the owners…
If anyone could imagine how much I loved tis cat… If you could imagine how much I miss him… Every time I open the front door I expect him to come. I go to sleep alone now…
I wonder, when I called the hospital the first time, was he still alive? Could he be saved?
I don’t know if I want to know… But I’m very disappointed in both the police and the hospital.
In my deep grief I find comfort in knowing that I did what I could and I know I gave him a happy life full of love. I’m also thankful that he didn’t suffer to death in the snow… But, God I miss him and it hurts!
ASATRON 