Ginevra Weasley

She was a gift from the start.

It was sheer chance she landed with us: the pet of a friend of ours who, due to circumstances out of their control, needed to be rehomed. We did not have any pets, and had a fairly large yard, so we took her in and kept her name.

She was named after the Harry Potter franchise character Ginevra Weasley, owing to her ginger fur. Everyone called her Ginny.

Not really knowing how Ginny might respond to an entirely new home, we set up spaces where we hoped she would feel safe. The box window at the front was the first, a fresh blanket and a generously sized box to hide in forming the basis of a spot she could call her own. In typical cat fashion, she barely went near it.

The only photo of her in the box we’d placed there was taken to prove that she had actually been inside the box at least once.

Instead, Ginny made herself at home, quickly ingratiating herself as part of our family - after she got used to the sounds and smells, and was finished hiding under the bed, of course - and became one of us.

Since I was working, my wife did all of the hard work - the grooming and the cleaning up and the litter tray and all that. One of the hardest parts of owning a ragdoll cat is brushing its fur. Or, rather, getting the cat to sit f**king still while you brush its fur. We managed this feat as a team: I would lie in front of Ginny and hand-feed her some kind of treat food, while she brushed the fur.

Eventually, Ginny would get to the end of the sachet of whatever we were feeding her, and start chomping on the end of the wrapper, and then chomping on my finger, before running off and hiding for a few minutes.

Ginny loved our bathroom tap, too. It had a loose ring at the end so a little bit of wiggling would make water drip out, at which point she would angle her head beneath the tap and lap up the water as it fell into her mouth.

Once, I found her asleep in the sink. I assume the tap trick was tiring.

While I wasn’t as involved with Ginny on the day-to-day, I did my best to interact with her, lying down with her in front of the fire during the winter months or trying to get her to play. She was usually the last person I saw as I was leaving the house for work, perched on the fence for a quick pat as I walked out the gate.

As I’ve mentioned before, my wife and I separated in May last year, and she was kind enough to ask me to check in on Ginny if she was ever away from the house. While I was ostensibly just there to freshen up her water and top up the kibbles, I invariably ended up staying an hour or more having some snuggles with Ginny. I missed her a lot after I moved out. I think she missed me too.

We found out mid-last year that Ginny had the cat-specific (and common) chronic kidney disease, and that her time with us was limited. My ex-wife was brilliant, researching dietary changes that would help, looking into treatments, all of that. It was all delaying the inevitable, of course.

Ginny stopped eating over the weekend and was put into palliative care. She was put to sleep this morning and buried at my ex-wife’s new house in the Whanganui region.

Our daughter, obsessed with the Warrior Cats book series, commended her to Star Clan, as I understand it, the afterlife of the Warrior Cats universe: “May you find good hunting, swift running, and shelter where you sleep.”

My most recent memory of Ginny comes from June this year. Due to a car accident (everyone was okay), a well-laid plan to move her to the new house fell apart, and I stepped in to drive her down. Due to the kidney disease, we couldn’t sedate her, so I drove the entire four and a half hours with her in the back, covered in a blanket, and making noise on occasion.

It was dark in her cage - and as it was a night drive, dark outside too - so she occasionally started to yowl. I would soothe her from the driver’s seat as best I could, letting her know I was there and she was safe as gently as I could. She’d be fine again for twenty minutes or so, then we’d do it again.

I don’t know much about cats but I like to think the familiarity of my voice and the love in my words helped on that long, dark trip to a place she had never been before and didn’t ask to go to, to a new and love-filled home.

I hope she has my voice - and those of my ex-wife and our kids - with her wherever she is now. Good hunting. Swift running. Shelter where you sleep.

Thanks for reading everyone.
Talk to you again soon.
Chris xo