A remarkable cat's tale

Meet 'Holly'.......



Holly is at the center of a heartwarming and quite remarkable story, though it might not seem so to begin with. She belongs, or I should say belonged, to a long time friend of mine, I'll call her 'L' for the purpose of this story.

'L' and I met when she came many years ago to the place I worked, as a 'Saturday checkout operator'. at the time she was only 17 years of age and about to go to university but gradually, finding we had much in common we became firm friends and until I moved here to Scotland we spent a great deal of time together.

'L' had not had an easy life in her 17 years. As a child she had lost her twin to a road traffic accident in which both she and her father were also involved and injured. Some years later, in an effort to live with their loss a special family holiday was arranged as a way to try and draw a line under the past a little and make a new start. They went for a month to Canada. It was in Canada that 'L', whilst swimming in a lake, contracted a viral infection that within days had caused her kidneys to fail dramatically. Eventually she was stable enough to be returned to the UK, where sometime later she received a transplant.

As is often the case it was not all 'plain sailing' and her bodies rejection of the organ was severe. To this day she requires some pretty heavy duty medication and has to live with a permanent Hickman line in her chest. She copes admirably.She lives alone, owns her own house, works full time and has a hectic social life when her health permits it. In the days when I lived in London and she was an almost daily visitor to my home her medications became so routine that we had stocks in our fridge and hooks hidden under pictures on the wall, specifically to hang her I.V. bags from. I got quite adept over time at removing fatally dangerous air bubbles from her line and would 'hook her up', go make dinner and she would receive her medication as we ate to save wasting time later when we might want to go out. 'L' never let her difficulties restrict her more than they had to, though frequent stays in hospital often disrupted plans. She went to university, travelled some, rode pillion on many outings with us and was to overcome yet another major difficulty in her life, though the details of that are not for me to expand on here.

Among all of this one of her passions was her cats, Jarvis and Holly. Even this could not be simple for 'L'. Jarvis, a beautiful ginger and white tom, died suddenly at age four of a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect, this for 'L' was almost the last straw but as ever, after a while, she rallied her strength and got on with her life.

Shortly afterwards she was forced to move house and she and Holly packed their bags and settled into a new home. But Holly it seemed, did not settle, and within days had circumnavigated 'L's attempts to keep her indoors until she was familiar with her new surroundings and had made an escape. She was never seen again and after weeks of advertising and hunting the search was abandoned and 'L' sadly resigned herself to the thought that 'something had happened' to her.

She didn't get another cat.

And then, on Saturday, three years after the disappearance, she called me, full of excitement. A local vet had just called her to say she had Holly in her surgery. 'L' was over the moon but skeptical.

Apparently it would seem that when Holly bolted she became stray. A kindly lady about a mile away had been feeding her all that time but not really wanting a cat had not fully 'adopted' her. This lady, a few days ago, having decided to go away on holiday, was concerned that the cat would go hungry so had caught her and taken her to the vets for inoculations with the intention of putting her in a cattery until she returned. Whilst checking the cat over the vet had noticed a small lump under the skin of her neck and on investigation had discovered it was a microchip. She scanned the cat and up popped 'L's details. Thankfully 'L' had never changed her mobile number.

And so yesterday, amid much excitement and a little trepidation that somehow this would not be Holly she went to visit the found cat. Within seconds of meeting, said cat, normally quite retiring, recognised her old friend and began rubbing around her legs, rolling on her back at her feet and purring madly........ after all that time she still appeared to remember her.....and so, for 'L', for once their is a happy ending, mother and cat are reunited and this time the doors and windows will be firmly shut until Holly is used to her 'new' home!