Carmen Ali aka April Fiasco

Little One died peacefully last night at home, the day before she was due for euthanasia. She was 17 years old and had kidney failure (and high blood pressure). 

Little One, so named as she was always a particualy small cat, was born on the 5th of July 2006, and grew up in Hampstead. 

She became pregnant at just 10 months old with 4 kittens. From the vet notes, it sounds like none of them survived. She was then pregnant again a few years’ later, and was finally spayed during her pregnancy (which meant the kittens were aborted).

She lived with 3 other cats. A girl cat named Rocket, and two boy cats – Mean Eye and Psycho. The cats’ owner had just died from a heart attack during the first lockdown. Myself and my ex partner went to meet them on 23rd of April 2020 and ended up adopting Little One, and Rocket (who was 10). Mean Eye, and Psycho were later adopted by a family.

We had only planned to get one cat, but once we saw them both we couldn’t leave either of them behind. Rocket was quiet and we knew she had some unresolved health issues, but we fell in love with her immediately. Then we saw Little One and fell in love with her too. 

Before we took them both home, a big dog from the neighbourhood named Sky walked past on the street. Little One stared down the dog, and the dog retreated. We liked her style.

She meowed loudly all the way home in the Uber and then hid in the shoe rack for the first day. A couple of days later, ex let them both out into the garden (despite the fact he’d had cats before and should have known to ground them(!). 

Anyway…

Little One escaped through a hole in the fence and was missing for about 30 hours. We panicked and made leaflets for all the neighbours, and went knocking on their doors, in case she had wandered into their gardens, before realising she’d been hiding just behind the fence the whole time. 

We left food in the garden and she kept coming back to eat it. I managed to tempt her out of her hiding spot with some tuna. I grabbed her, and picked her up and ran back to the kitchen. She jumped out of my hands and ran off again. Eventually we got her to come back in (and stay in for at least a month)! 

But Rocket had started to deteriorate, and Little One saw she was unwell, and started to groom her and look after her. Two days’ later Rocket was put to sleep, as she had fluid on her lungs. We couldn’t go into the vets with her because of the lockdown, so we had to say goodbye to her on the street in the rain after only having her for 5 days.

We began to notice that Little One couldn’t hear properly, as she would never know when you were coming up behind her, and her meows were particularly noisy. The vet later confirmed she was almost completely deaf. 

Before she got sick, she loved food, and would often ask for a second breakfast or second dinner. Some days when she was particularly greedy/affectionate she would wake me up by sitting on top of me and rubbing her face on mine. Then putting her butthole in my face. 

She was never much of a hunter but the one time her feral instinct would come out was when there were prawns around. Once she grabbed a prawn dumpling off my plate before I could stop her. My little apex predator.

In Dec 2021 we adopted Oreo and it took them a while to warm up to each other. The first night they met, Little One peed everywhere and ran away from him. But eventually she got used to living with a boy cat again, and they even slept near each other sometimes. 

In August 2022 one of my housemates adopted Hamilton. Oreo and Hamilton bonded and Little One tolerated them, more so after they were neutered. She would still occasionally pre-emptively go to swipe them and make a funny whiny growly noise while she did it, but generally they all lived happily together, and made our house a home. Today there is one less fluffle in the house, and it’s going to take a while to get used to.

Little One had a hard life in some ways. She went through a lot. But she also had wonderful and fulfilling life, full of love, cuddles, and seafood.

I hope that she and Rocket are together in kitty heaven, if there is such a thing, eating lots of prawns, and bitching about boy cats.

L: Like why do they always wanna hump us?”

R: Yeah I do not miss that

L: Remember when I had to have that abortion?”

R “No, I wasn’t born then babe!

L: Oh yeah. (Pause) Hey, pass those prawns

Little One was gentle AND fierce. A funny, feisty, feminist feline friend, and I’m so grateful I got to spend 3+ years of my life with her. Her face was purrfect, her meows were loud and proud, and the different coloured fur patch on her belly was beautiful.

Rest in Peace

Little One, LP, Little Fluff

05/07/06 –  16/10/23

You were the best cat I could ever have hoped for and I will always love you.

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