Celia came to SHUA in 2005 and was already pretty ancient then. She was a really quiet, unassuming and incredibly petite girl who had a remarkable talent for passively getting her own way.
As with so many other old cats who come to SHUA, we did not know how long Celia might have with us. After the routine initial isolation period, we integrated Celia with our other "Golden Oldies" in our trustees' conservatory. Most of our senior citizens LOVE the conservatory - it has a serene atmosphere with no youngsters to disrupt the relaxed pace of life; access to yummy senior food; the obvious benefits of being a conservatory i.e. great for sunbathing; plus easy access to the outdoors for the more mobile residents. But Celia was not content. She decided immediately that she wanted special attention and embarked on a relentless campaign to get it. Every time the door accessing the rest of our trustees' house was opened, this usually pretty immobile old girl would somehow slip through unnoticed. Only much later would one of us notice an unfamilar tortie curled up asleep on the sofa!
A battle of wills ensued but eventually we gave in: Celia had moved herself in to the house and joined Patti (another elderly resident) on the sofa.
Celia certainly had her ways. She figured that if she stared at the fridge for long enough, eventually someone would open it and offer her a tasty morsel such as milk or chicken. To her credit, it worked every time that we saw!
She certainly could make us laugh: Celia was prone to bouts of sneezing but would not come up for air inbetween sneezes - her record was 29 in a row!
In March 2006, there was a flood at the trustees' house and the ceiling in the lounge partially caved in under the weight of the water. When Jacqui and one of our volunteers came back from a rescue and walked into the disaster area, they could not help but laugh at Celia and Patti. The other cats had quite sensibly fled the lounge - with water everywhere and bits of plaster and dust all over the place, but not these two. They were still happily curled up on the sofa as if nothing had happened!
We don't really understand why people don't want to adopt older cats - ok, so odds are that you won't have as long with them as you would with a younger cat - but they give you just as much pleasure, love and companionship. It is a different relationship and we fully admit that some of them are stubborn and set in their ways - but having a strong spirit is a good thing! We wouldn't have them any other way.
Celia was a tiny lass with a very big personality. After a short illness, she was euthanased on the 16th of March 2007, our oldest tortie after losing Pepsi and Bjork in December the previous year. She is missed by all of us and will never be forgotten.
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