The most patient cat ever. I got a call to my rescue organization from a veterinarian's office. It was hard to believe they were saying what they were saying. They said they had a cat there, that they had been using for a blood donor, but for some reason they didn't want her anymore. They said if I did not pick her up in one day, they were going to take her out of her cage and toss her in the street. A vet!
At the time, all I had was a motorcyle (this was before I got hit by a car on that motorcycle and got lifelong chronic pain from that- but that's a different story).
I went to the vet's office, and there was Finora ( I did not name her- that's the name they had for her) in her cage. They let her out, and she practically leapt into my arms. I drove her home inside my jacket on my motorcycle. I never understood that- she was so sweet and good natured, and rode home on a motorcycle- had spent (according to them) several years in a cage doing nothing but giving blood for the other cat patients. She was a saint.
I did try to find a home for her, but at the time my rescue organization had only a few foster homes. One lady wanted her really badly, but when I visited her home, she had plastic on all the furniture (that's actually clean)- because she had four cats over the age of 20 with various stages of cancer. I understood why she wanted a younger cat, especially since the vet had said Finora had cancer, but Finora was so much younger, and that house was so depressing, I just couldn't leave her there. All in all, I had Finora for a good 10 years after that.
I had her for about 10 years after that, and brought her to Ghosthouse, so she was a very old cat. She was funny. She'd be all quiet, and then all of the sudden get a hair up her ass and start skitterbugging all over the house. She was awfully polite. Sadly, she was one of the first cats that were killed by my psychotic drug-abusing ex-military next-door-neighbor who decided he hated my cats. She disappeared, and years later, after he'd gotten off the drugs, he admitted he trapped her and took her up into the mountains and dumped her. To this day, it breaks my heart thinking about her all lost and hungry and dying up in the mountains all alone.
I hated that neighbor for years. He didn't just kill her, he killed many cats, and not just mine. Once he got off the drugs (after I threatened to call his military superiors), he came home one day with a kitten. It creeped me out. He'd seen someone toss her out the window on Kearney street, and he picked her up. You'd have thought she was made of gold. After that, all of the sudden, he just loved cats. So weird. I'm glad that he is now nice to cats, but that doesn't give me back all the cats he killed. Sad.
I think of Finora often, and not just because I have a painting of her on my wall. She was a very sweet cat who had a hard life, and deserved to have died with some love and dignity.
I know the picture is bad. The wording on it says- 'Only a small black angel could get into heaven now-a-days'.
Funny thing- I learned when I started that rescue group that it is easy to find people willing to throw 10 bucks your way each month to keep rescuing animals- but very few people were willing to actually take an animal in and care for them themselves. Eventually it overwhelmed me, and when I moved away from Santa Barbara, I didn't try to run another rescue organization.
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