Magic Memories of Melon

Ginger Melon MP came into our lives just under ten years ago. Her arrival was entirely The Husband’s fault. We had to collect medication for another feline; I sat in the car and waited. When he emerged from the vet’s I was summoned.     

“Come! You have to see these…”   

In the rooms there was a litter of four ginger kittens. They must have been all of four days old; two males and two females. So young that most still had kinks in their tails that had to unfurl as they grew. Sitting slightly apart from her siblings was a female with the sweetest, sad little face. Already she had been named “Melancholy”. Melon for short.   

“No, we can’t get a kitten. Not until Tasha’s gone. She won’t cope”. At that point, Tasha, our Pavement Persian was about seventeen.

Well, that was an entirely futile argument. As soon as we reached home I was on the phone, “Melon has a home.”   

Then we had to wait: they were still being mothered – by humans – bottle-fed, cleaned and cared for and certainly couldn’t come home. Oh, we were welcome to visit – which we did until the appointed day arrived, about three or so weeks later.   

In December 2008, and Melon came home – the end of a journey from a box picked up on the side of a highway in Mitchell’s Plain, a suburb in Cape Town. 

She arrived complete with a starter pack, the best part of which, for her, was the box. She spent a lot of her time in boxes – when she wasn’t climbing on to things. She was very much an “up” cat and independent and fearless. She soon discovered how to fly the coop and in the early days we spent a great deal of time looking for her. 

When we found her, she was either blissfully ignorant of the commotion or would look at us, quizzically. She could only be saying, “I’m fine, what are you worried about?”   

Well, one of our concerns was that “Kilroy” would disappear behind one of those cushions – with the direst of consequences. 

 The staff at the vet were kept up to date with Melon’s childhood antics and asked to enter into her into a competition. Lo and behold, she won! 

The only beauty queen in this family!   As she grew up, she spent a great deal of time supervising The Cat’s Mother at work, and although a prodigious hunter of birds, and not for lack of trying, she never managed to catch a squirrel. 

Over the ensuing few years and the move to McGregor which was fantastic for a cat that had been abandoned on the side of the road and who actually hated being indoors and loved the outdoors and to be able to range. 

 Yesterday, Melon and the magic she brought to our lives left us. After the storm last week, she was not much around – as was her wont. 

When, however, we did find her, she was not herself. On Sunday evening, during Sunday Supper service, she slunk in through the cat flap and headed upstairs. When we went to bed, we had a conversation with her and said good night. She wasn’t well.   On Monday morning she was worse, not helped by the Cat’s Mother having tripped over her during the night. Unusual because she’d normally have moved out of the way. More unusual because she cried – in pain. She was lying in the second to top step on the stairs. Not interested in the world. Her very talkative, squirrel tail was still.   

Off to Mrs Vet. 

Tentative diagnosis: “She’s injured – either knocked by someone or something. Probably nothing broken, but we’ll give her painkillers and keep her overnight. No improvement in the morning, and we’ll have to give her an anaesthetic and do an X-ray.”   

Yesterday morning, the phone rang. “Melon is not at all well.”   Permission to X-ray was granted.   Not perhaps an hour later. The phone rang again. 

“Please hold on, Mrs Vet would like to speak to you.”   

“Melon has advanced lymph cancer. The knock she took accelerated it. The kindest thing to do is to let her go.”  

So, Melon, with her magic now rests under a tree in the garden, along with two of her sisters. Their stories another time.   She, and her magic live on in our memories, especially of her in her tree. 

Post script:
Pearli’s Pickles resume next week.  

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