Sometimes you just know. From the first moment I saw this tiny face, I knew she had to be part of our family. I'd had my two cats (Bella and Fin) for years. They were sisters adopted together, and had always snuggled up happily, spending all their lives together. As they got older I feared what would happen when one of them died. Would the remaining cat fret? The only clear logical thing to do was get another cat, to ensure no one would be alone if the worst happened.
One day in 2015 I was going to the pet supply store to buy special food for Fin. There at the entrance was an enclosure filled with kittens from Second Chance Animal Rescue. I'm usually happy to look at kittens, try to pat them with my finger through the wire, and go about my day. But then I spied her. I knew I was in trouble. I took a photo and texted it to Peter. I arrived home and pleaded with him to come back to the store with me. Once there, Peter too, fell under the spell of this tiny face. We learned her name was Callie - as she was a calico tortoiseshell. We enquired about adoption only to find out our local council needs a special permit once you have above two cats per household. We weren't able put a deposit on her as we didn't have the right paperwork. This began a harrassment campaign of our coucil offices to ensure we could get a permit. Peter was relentless and eventually wore them down until the paperwork was complete. Luckily, Callie was still there waiting to be adopted. We took a cat carrier up to the pet supply store and finally got to hold her. I've never had a kitten before. All the previous cats I'd adopted had been around two years old. She felt so tiny.
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The photo I sent Peter from the pet supply store |
On the drive home she meowed. At the top of her lungs. How was something so small making all that noise? Luckily it was only a short drive and we set up the spare room with things for her. I'd read about intoducing a new kitten to a household - needing to keep them isolated for around a week - and then supervised meetings. Callie knew no fear and bounded up to the two larger cats once out of isolation. She would not be put off by their hissing. Slowly but surely she wore them down. She was a kitten bounding full of energy essential living with two old aged pensioner cats. She played happily with Fin, but Bella (who never grew larger than a one year old cat) was soon overwhelmed by this larger boysterous kitten. But they eventually all learned to snuggle up together.
Bella unfortunately developed cancer and was put down at the end of 2016. Our hearts were broken, but the antics of our affectionate goofball kitten helped us through. In early 2017 we adopted Pepper, another tortoiseshell (black and tan) who was closer in age to Callie. The three cats bonded with much chasing up and down stairs from the kittens. When Fin died at the ripe old age of 18 in 2020, we adopted Darcy (a diluted grey and tan torite kitten) and the intergrated family changed again.
As Callie grew, her coat developed. She turned into a stunning and incredibly soft long haired cat. Perhaps we should have guessed by looking at the amazing length of her whiskers. As Peter and I wear so much black, we'd be forever removing long white hairs off each other. The constant gag was that wherever we went 'Callie has come too'.
Callie's personality developed as she grew. A klutz. A goofball. A smoocher. Her cup of personality raneth over! She really just loved being with us. During lockdowns and writing uni assignments, or simply sitting on the couch each evening, she just liked being near us.
We have so many hilarious stories. Here are a few:
We'd made guacamole and were eating it on the couch with corn chips. Callie decided she liked the idea of cornchips and practically crawled inside the whole bag. Somehow she couldn't reverse out without the bag also moving, and reversed herself off the coffee table inside the chip bag.
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Mid chip packet raid |
She loved to sit in and on all things. In boxes, on paper, in bowls. She would sit on the kitchen bench on top of our muesli container supervising dinner preparation or baking. This garnered her the title of the 'tiny sous chef'. She would sit in all things. Boxes (a classic), mixing bowls, on and in paper bags, in plastic bags, plastic gardening tubs, christmas wreaths and presents, our stereo (DJ Cal) and was very happy making her way onto our bookshelf.
We came home one day and found Callie on the bedroom floor moving oddly. I thought' she'd fallen and hurt one of her front legs. I picked her up gently to find she'd managed to get into a paper bag we had upstairs, but looped herself through the handle. Most of the bag had been torn away, but the handle remained looped around her neck and one leg caught, all hidden under her long fur. We had to get scissors to cut her out!
As her coat was so long it also meant a lot of hairballs. One day we heard that familiar coughing sound. I walked over to clear up and found she'd actually vomited up a rubber band! From that moment on, no rubber bands could be left anywhere. There is footage of her trying to pull a rubber band off our mail! She seemed to have a skill in sniffing them out. To this day I can't see a discarded rubber band without panicking, even at work or out on the street. I always want to leap to pick it up, keeping it safely out of Cal's way (and stomach).
I loved watching her move. She didn't run, she pranced. Floofy tail in the air and a gentle skip in her stride. It made me smile endlessly that a kitten so silly had such an elegant way of moving. But she could also be a complete doofus. Her fluffiness also extended to her feet. This made if difficult to cut her nails. By the time I'd sorted the nails from the fur, poised with my clippers, she had wriggled free from my grasp. This meant she was always caught on something. Her claws would get hooked into the rug, the scratching post, our numerous couches she tore to shreds, our clothes, my tights. Whenever we visited the vet I would ask that they trim her nails as it was always such a challenge at home. This meant that many times she would be kneading us gently, yet we'd be squirming in pain as her claws pierced through any fabric!
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Those hairy snow leopard feet which made it impossible to clip her claws |
She loved to lick our hands. During the night if we stirred she would walk up the bed and decide to show us love by purring loudly and licking us. This is fine if its the hand that is patting her. But sometimes while we slept she would stand on our pillows and try to lick our eyelids. I have a theory that having long hair meant she needed a rougher tongue. It was essentially like having your eyelid sandpapered! We would have to hide our faces under the covers until she relented!
While preening herself there were so many times Callie would have Peter and I in stiches. Somehow she was able to flip one of her ears inside out, flat against her head. We would joke, asking Cal if things sounded weird or could she hear the ocean. Eventually it would flip back, but the regularity that this happened was hilarious.
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Callie and her inside out ear |
Her tail had a mind of it's own. Callie had this incredible fluffy duster of a tail which was often the cause of mayhem. She would be circling on our laps trying to find the most comfortable spot. But this sometimes meant her tail swiped my cup of tea, the jam on my toast or through my bowl of soup. We'd be forever picking her up to wipe food off her furry tail. She would knock over items on our kitchen table (glasses, vases, boxes) with the swish of her tail as she rolled over to have her belly rubbed.
From as early age she was given the nickname Rowdy Wrigglesworth. Partly because she was so incredibly chatty and because if you picked her up and she wasn't up for a cuddle she would wriggle until you placed her back on the ground. You can search for photos of her under the hashtag #rowdywrigglesworth She was so unbelieveably vocal. As soon as you said her name she would answer back. In recent years she has spent a lot of time with Peter. If he sat down she would jump into his lap and lay stretched out with her paws towards his face. Her purr was unrivalled. If Peter came home later from work, she meowed at him until he sat at the kitchen table. If he didn't pat her immediately, she would tap his shoulder with her paw or rub her face on his arm. All while meowing loudly. You couldn't ignore her. Once she received attention, the purring would start. I loved watching this nightly routine as it summed up just how much she adored Peter.
In the last few years she developed a weird habbit. She would pick up toy mice and carry them through the house in her mouth meowing at the top of her voice. We thought this was hilarious, until she began doing it at 1am and again at 3am. Mutiple times a night, we would be awakened by her yowling. Sometimes she would go into the bathroom as the reverb gave her voice extra volume. After many sleepness nights we had to begin hiding all the cat toys. Unperturbed, Callie took this as a challenge. She then moved on to my socks. After kicking them off my feet in the middle of the night, Cal would begin her nightly routine with one sock in her mouth. I then had to hide all socks and try not to kick them out of bed while sleeping. Cal would do this activity randomly during the day, and many times I came home to find she'd burrowed into my pajamas, to retrieve the hidden bed socks, and they were in the middle of the loungeroom. One day I even found my small Hedwig (the owl from Harry Potter) toy had been relocated! Cal moved on to tissues as her paraded trophy. So with each new item, we would have to be vigilent to ensure a good nights sleep. However, nothing stopped her. Last week I found a pair of my tights abandonded on the bathroom floor while I was at work. She seemed so happy and proud taking items up and down the stair or into the bathroom throughout the day and night.
She had a funny relationship with the other cats. Although at times they were happy to snuggle up in a furry puddle together, it was like she'd forgotten how to play. If Pepper chased her Callie growled and hissed at her. She was known to take a swing and Pepper or Darcy as they simply walked past her. She was a conundrum as she was such a smooch with us, but seemed to need to assert her seniorority in the cat pecking order. Then two seconds later she'd be preening the others. Relationship status: it's complicated.
About 8 months ago she jumped up on my lap. She had developed an insatiable appetite. She would eat her food and then scarper over the Pepper and Darcy looking to muscle in on any leftovers. While stroking her I was horrified at how thin she'd become. It was hard to tell under all that fur. A trip to the vet and many tests uncovered she had developend hyperthyroidism. She now needed a tablet morning and night. For the most part she was compliant at medication time, but every so ofter she would manage to spit the tablet out repeatedly. Sometimes she would hide under the couch. Not great when you're trying to get to work. But her weight stabilised and she seemed her usually smoochy self. I was pleased she didn't hold the tablet application against me, and would cuddle up next to me on the couch.
If you've been following along this blog you'll know that Peter and I have had a lot going on in recent years. After Peter's dad died in February, and we began to get our energy back after a number of months and we planned a holiday. Six days in Sydney. We had a great time, but on the last morning as we were packing for the airport the cattery rang us. Callie had been having difficulty breathing, so they spoke to an emergency vet who recommended they bring her in. Peter and I began to fret. The vet rang as we were getting into the taxi to go to the airport. They needed me to sign a consent form and put a $1000 deposit. They'd send me an email outlining what was happening. I had to wait until we'd navigated the baggage and security check and while waiting out our terminal, I rang them back. We managed to do some of it via text and phone. I explained the flight was at 11am. On touching down in Melbourne I took my phone of airoplane mode and there was a message from the vet asking me to call. I wasn't able to get through, so decided to try after we'd got home. I was placed on hold and just decided Peter and I needed to get Pepper and Darcy from the cattery. The kind souls there told us what had happened. We thanked them for their care and for looking after Callie. Once home I dashed to the emergency vet. They brought Callie out in an oxygen crib, and the vet explained that they'd done a scan of her chest. They needed to remove fluid build up in her body and drained 300 mls from her small body. This fluid had been impacting her lungs and making it hard to breathe. They explained that with hyperthyroidism cats can also develop heart disease, and much of this is hidden until things get dire. They were putting her on blood thinners and diaretics in the hope of minimising the fluid building up. I could see she was having a hard time breathing and I decided to leave her in over night. I gave her lots of pats and her might purr returned, even though she was so unwell.
We woke the next morning to find numerous missed calls overnight from the vet clinic. I called and spoke to the vet. The medication wasn't working and the fluid was building up again. This meant the heart failure was in a different section than they'd hoped. We said we'd come in immediately. On arrival they wheeled her out and this was the first time Peter had seen her in the oxygen crib. The nurse left us alone with her. We patted her and talked to her and again the mighty purr came though, even as she struggled to breath easily. Peter and I sobbed. The vet came in and reiterated that we could try visiting a cat cardiologist and that there might be some treatment options they didn't know about. But as we looked at Callie struggling we knew this would only delay the inevitable. The vet said she would give us time and to let reception know when we were ready. We cried more. As we patted Cal, Peter rubber her belly. She rolled on her side lifting a back leg and purring. We tooks photos and video of our floofy sweetheart. And then let them know it was time. The vet lifted her out of the crib and in classic Cal form, her claws were caught in the fluffy mat they had her resting on. I tried to untangle her but the vet suggested we bring the mat with her. We kissed Callie and stroked her as she went to sleep. We explained that we wanted to take her home and organise a cremation. They organised to wrap up her body for us. She was handed back to us in a calico bag. I smiled at the syncronicity of my calico cat leaving this world in a calico bag.
We rang the kind woman who'd helped us with Bella and Fin's cremations. When she arrived I placed Cal into her basket. Caroline asked if we wanted to write on the calico bag. This hadn't crossed my mind. With a pink sharpie I wrote a goodbye from us and told Callie we loved her. Peter and I broke down in tears again.
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I am pleased we made it back to Melbourne to be with Callie. But what is most heartbreaking is how suddenly it happened, and that she was only 10 and a half. It felt far too young. There were more times I wanted to share with her. I wanted to film some of the funny things she did, as I'd meant to each other time she did them.
As Peter, Pepper, Darcy and I try to ensure everyone is ok in the wake of Cal's departure, what I'm struck by is how quiet the house is. Callie filled the space with her loud meows and purrs and with her huge personality. Somehow the quietness is amplifying her absence, and making the loss of her harder.
We love you Callie. Thank you for making us smile, for showering us with your love and purrs. You will always be missed.
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