Heidi Berry RIP

Yesterday was a very sad day.

About a month ago, the missus and I noticed that our lovely cat Heidi had started behaving slightly out of character. She'd had her annual check up in October, so it was a bit of a surprise to see her behaving as if she were unwell.

Although often wary of strangers (and extremely timid with children), she'd always been very sociable with her family. She loved to climb into bed and snuggle up (usually, and uncomfortably, on your head). She was persistant in her pursuit of all comforts. In fact, we have the scratches on the bedroom door and carpet outside to prove it. Though her name was inspired from a tendency to hide in even the smallest of spaces when we first brought her back from the Cat's Protection League, she was more often to be found curled up on a cushion in the lounge or sitting, staring at you whilst you took a bath. One of her favourite things was to have her face stroked and she would often turn and lean toward you in anticipation if she was on your lap, or stretch out a paw in demand of attention as you passed. If she was really happy, and you were blessed, you'd see her tongue stick out as she purred.

But during November, she'd started taking to sitting on a chair in the office upstairs and snoozing rather than racing downstairs as soon as we got home. We'd call her down as we watched TV but she didn't always come.

Even so, when she was up and about (mostly at the weekends), she was still pretty active. I've got some great photos of her sitting on the roof of the shed at the end of our garden that were taken only two weeks ago. (She rarely went up there - usually only for a bit of sunbathing on hot days, so this in itself was just as uncharacteristic as her recent quiet behaviour.)

But then we noticed a worrying development, in that she had started to lose weight quite quickly. Never a lean cat at the best of times (she was very little and had quite a saggy little tummy in any case, but she had been on a mixture of diet and dental control food most of her life), she was noticably thinner over the last couple of weeks. We could feel her spine as we stroked her and her legs seemed bonier. When she wet herself overnight on the sofa, it was clear something was wrong.

So last Saturday she went to the vet, who said she needed an x-ray, as there was a lump in her tummy. Even then, we still thought that it was possibly just an obstruction in her intestine. (We'd been feeding her some "treat" catnip and chocolate drops over the last month, to cheer her up, and at one point we thought they'd maybe clogged her up.) We were instructed to put her on an immediate very simple diet of white fish and small pieces of chicken, to keep her warm (although she never took to the furry hot water bottle we'd leave her overnight), and keep an eye on her toilet habits.

Some cats eat plastic bags, they said. Some can get blockages from the string around meat joints. But it could be worse. Heidi was clearly delighted with her new mealtime regime. We even let her lick our plates on the table (which we'd never done before). She seemed as normal as before. She even had a little fight with us, and let us stroke her tummy (a typical greeting on our return from work or at breakfast - she'd roll over onto her back and purr, until we played along, then she'd attack!). Perhaps a simple operation would put things right?

Not so.

On Monday, she had the x-ray, which revealed that in actual fact she was suffering from an aggressive tumour in her tummy, with more on the way, and an accompanying thickening of her intestinal walls. She wasn't going to get better after all. It was as bad as things could be.

That night, at home, Heidi was pretty spaced out (probably from all the anaesthetic she'd had) and, for a cat who could've qualified for an Olympic napping team, didn't seem to be sleeping well. We made an impromptu litter tray for her in the utility room. (The reason she'd wet herself on the sofa, we realised now, was because it had become too painful to go through the cat flap.) In the event, she was even cleverer than that and, during the night, came up the stairs, went into the bathroom, and had a wee in the shower. (She was definitely her daddy's girl.)

And then we made a decision.

So, our final night together as a family was in front of the telly on Tuesday, for the most part with Heidi Berry stretched out on my lap, purring in half sleep. We watched Survivors and Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe. (Good episodes both.) We ate a stir fry. We smiled at her, we cuddled her, we fussed over her. We kept everything as normal as possible. We were brave.

Then, at about 10.30am yesterday, the vet arrived to put Heidi to sleep. Our little cat had spent much of the morning sitting on a chair under the dining table, looking out of the back window into the garden and watching mummy and daddy as they busied about making cups of tea, listening to the radio and wrapping up presents for people. Typical tortoiseshell that she was, Heidi feistily objected to being moved - she had a hell of a growl on her - and having a line put in her leg (where she'd had the anaesthetic line a few days earlier).

We took her to the sofa, but she wasn't having any of it and wandered off, so we had to bring her back. I talked to her, smiled and stroked her head as the vet and her nurse delivered the lethal injection.

Then, as the vet said "She's gone," my heart broke.

Being brave, someone clever once explained, isn't about not being afraid. It's about being afraid, but doing what you need to do anyway. Once Heidi was gone, there was no reason to be brave any more. I cried - no, I sobbed, uncontrollably - for the first time in about fifteen years. We said goodbye to our little treasure (she was only about seven years old), as she was taken away in a soft blanket. She still had her eyes half open (just like when she was asleep) and her tongue was sticking out.

She was only a cat, a brindle rescue cat with a kink in her tail and green eyes that lit up weirdly in half-light and camera flashes. She was a pain in the arse, fighting with the DVD loading drawer or the lead of the steam iron. She was sulky, and moody, and pretty damn violent at times. But she was often friendly, and cuddly, and warm and purry. And she picked us to live with these past six years.

And do you know what?

I loved her.