THE PASSING OF OUR 'STOCKING'

There she was, having her kittens right smack on our old sofa on our patio. There were six of them, tiny little creatures with eye still closed.

The queen was barely an adult..still too young to have babies. She just came to our residence as soon as we moved in, that was more than three years ago.

With a twist of misfortunes, the queen was ran over as I reversed my car. It was indeed a very tragic incident. She quickly ran over her kittens as soon as she realized that her life in this world was nearing the end.

She looked at her kittens with sad eyes as she breathed her last breath. She was dead, right in front of her newborn kittens.

With her passing, the kittens were sort of left on their own. To cut the story short, only him (known as Stocking) survived to adulthood.

But, with no mother to teach him the way of life for a cat, he was far from a male cat that he was supposed to be. He missed most of the things that cats do.

He became a cat too dependent on us to give him food and love.

As everybody was busy with their own life - Kamal was married and moved out of the house,  Syafiq was too busy with his work and I was busy with my work in UniSZA, Stocking was left to survive in the cat's harsh world all by itself.

A rogue tomcat chased and bloodied him every time they came face to face. I remember seeing him high up the grill of our sliding door, sometimes twisting his legs, just to be away from the sharp teeth and claws of the muscular tomcat.

Then, as he was almost adult, it was his turn to bully that tomcat, who by now was so frail and sickly. It was sheer joy to see him giving his old enemy the chase. then that old tomcat disappeared, probably died somewhere.

With that old tomcat gone, Stocking's life became much easier. There was no other cat that could bully him. He was the king of the neighbourhood.

Suddenly he became anorectic. He did not want to eat anything my wife gave him, not even his favourite deep-fried golden-striped trevally (selar kuning).

Then one day I found him sprawled at the edge of my garage, very weak and emaciated. There was blood oozing out of his nostrils and mouth. He was dying. Fifteen minutes later, Stocking was no more with us. he has passed away at the age of just above three years.

Syafiq buried him beneath the busily fruiting mango tree. Stocking was no more with us, but with his mom and siblings....