I’ve stewed about writing this for the last few days, but I figure I’m doing my girl a disservice by putting it off for fear of not saying what I want to, exactly right. What can you say about a cat who’s had such a huge impact on your life?
Freya literally came with my first house. Mike and I married bought our 100 year old fixer-upper in the summer of 2006. On the second day we owned the house, I was standing on the back porch with my mom when we heard a loud meowing, then a scrawny, starving little cat popped out from under the porch and set about chattering at us. As far as cats go, she was a wreck. Two thirds of her tail were dry, bony, and hairless (necrotic, I later learned), one eye was clearly injured and she was so skinny that if you picked her up, you could feel her little organs working under the skin. She had huge paws. We weren’t really prepared to adopt a cat, but she was clearly prepared to adopt us. We fed her a can of tuna and decided if she was still around in the morning, we’d talk about keeping her. The next morning, she joined Mike for breakfast on the porch; chattering the whole time and stealing milk from his cereal. We called her Freya, thinking it suited her loving nature and her battle scars at the same time and booked her first vet visit. $2000, a spay surgery, tail amputation, vaccinations, and a trip to the emergency vet because we’d never seen a cat in heat, and we owned a cat.
Freya was my little tabby ball of attitude. She chattered constantly, had an opinion on everything, always had to have the last word and never quite accepted Mike as outranking her in the family hierarchy. She was a horribly picky eater – took us forever to find food that wouldn’t upset her stomach, and she hated change. When we first bought the house, we had no living room furniture, so we took the back bench seat out of the van and used it as a couch. 3 weeks later when the actual couch arrived, we move the van seat into the dining room as a reminder to take it back out and found a surly little cat sitting on it almost non-stop for the next few days, glaring at us and holding on to it with those giant paws.
Freya was one of those cats who needed company, but she was terrified of other cats. Our solution was to find her brother, Cotton. A friendly cat who was so quiet and inoffensive himself, that she couldn’t possibly be scared of him. When she first met him, she hissed, and he ran and hid behind a computer desk. She seemed surprised by this and went over to check on him looking for all the world like she was saying “Ummm...you okay? I didn’t really mean it”. They were best friends after that.
You couldn’t make the bed without tripping on Freya. You couldn’t wrap Christmas presents without her help and input. She loved to drink water out of the Christmas tree stand and would get stoned from the smell of menthol. Freya hated to be held, but the night we lost her brother, she crawled into my arms, screwed her eyes shut tight and lay like he used to. Her little body completely tense, but giving me this look of “I can do this for you once, but you really need to find someone else for this cat-task.” When we brought his urn home, she curled up with it for hours. She would hide behind things in the dark and jump out at you if she was bored. Watching you jump seemed to amuse the heck out of her.
She was our caretaker. Every kidney infection I had resulted in her curled up against my kidneys, keeping them warm. Every cold or flu was spent with a toasty ball of tabby tucked behind you knees.
She passed peacefully from this world on February 23rd, before the cancer could take away the quality of life she lived so fully. She was somewhere around 8 years old.
I could go on forever. She was my heart-cat. She was our first cat. She was my Freya.
Rest peacefully, sweetheart.
Freya literally came with my first house. Mike and I married bought our 100 year old fixer-upper in the summer of 2006. On the second day we owned the house, I was standing on the back porch with my mom when we heard a loud meowing, then a scrawny, starving little cat popped out from under the porch and set about chattering at us. As far as cats go, she was a wreck. Two thirds of her tail were dry, bony, and hairless (necrotic, I later learned), one eye was clearly injured and she was so skinny that if you picked her up, you could feel her little organs working under the skin. She had huge paws. We weren’t really prepared to adopt a cat, but she was clearly prepared to adopt us. We fed her a can of tuna and decided if she was still around in the morning, we’d talk about keeping her. The next morning, she joined Mike for breakfast on the porch; chattering the whole time and stealing milk from his cereal. We called her Freya, thinking it suited her loving nature and her battle scars at the same time and booked her first vet visit. $2000, a spay surgery, tail amputation, vaccinations, and a trip to the emergency vet because we’d never seen a cat in heat, and we owned a cat.
Freya was my little tabby ball of attitude. She chattered constantly, had an opinion on everything, always had to have the last word and never quite accepted Mike as outranking her in the family hierarchy. She was a horribly picky eater – took us forever to find food that wouldn’t upset her stomach, and she hated change. When we first bought the house, we had no living room furniture, so we took the back bench seat out of the van and used it as a couch. 3 weeks later when the actual couch arrived, we move the van seat into the dining room as a reminder to take it back out and found a surly little cat sitting on it almost non-stop for the next few days, glaring at us and holding on to it with those giant paws.
Freya was one of those cats who needed company, but she was terrified of other cats. Our solution was to find her brother, Cotton. A friendly cat who was so quiet and inoffensive himself, that she couldn’t possibly be scared of him. When she first met him, she hissed, and he ran and hid behind a computer desk. She seemed surprised by this and went over to check on him looking for all the world like she was saying “Ummm...you okay? I didn’t really mean it”. They were best friends after that.
You couldn’t make the bed without tripping on Freya. You couldn’t wrap Christmas presents without her help and input. She loved to drink water out of the Christmas tree stand and would get stoned from the smell of menthol. Freya hated to be held, but the night we lost her brother, she crawled into my arms, screwed her eyes shut tight and lay like he used to. Her little body completely tense, but giving me this look of “I can do this for you once, but you really need to find someone else for this cat-task.” When we brought his urn home, she curled up with it for hours. She would hide behind things in the dark and jump out at you if she was bored. Watching you jump seemed to amuse the heck out of her.
She was our caretaker. Every kidney infection I had resulted in her curled up against my kidneys, keeping them warm. Every cold or flu was spent with a toasty ball of tabby tucked behind you knees.
She passed peacefully from this world on February 23rd, before the cancer could take away the quality of life she lived so fully. She was somewhere around 8 years old.
I could go on forever. She was my heart-cat. She was our first cat. She was my Freya.
Rest peacefully, sweetheart.
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