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A co-worker of mine and her husband lost a close friend to cancer in November. On his deathbed, the friend asked her to please take in his cat. He died shortly after. The dying man's family had taken his cat to a shelter, but my coworker went and got her and brought her to her home. The cat immediately ran under the dishwasher and stayed there. For the next few days, my coworker would call to the cat, who would just come close enough to take the food that she offered in her hand, but the cat would not come out from under the dishwasher. After about five days, the cat stopped coming to get the food. My coworker had her husband pull out the dishwasher, and they found the cat, dead, in the space behind the stove that was adjacent to the dishwasher. She just did not want to live without her owner.
In another scenario, three of my four cats once belonged to another person. She rescued them as stray kittens and raised them for about a year in her flower shop, but when her business went under and she began suffering from severe physical ailments, she had to find a home for them. At the time, I had a roommate and we were renting a house together, so my roommate and I agreed to take them in. "Temporarily."
My roommate was a cancer patient and was also a recovering alcoholic. Those cats brought her a lot of comfort while she was undergoing chemotherapy, and she was their main feeder and caretaker since she was home all day. Unfortunately, as soon as the chemo stopped, she picked up the bottle again after 7 years of sobriety, and because I also had a young daughter in the house, I had to tell her to leave. I wondered if the cats would miss her, but they adjusted pretty well and shifted their loyalty to me. Maybe it made them nervous when she was home during the day and crashing into things and passing out in the middle of floors, I don't know. In the meantime, my daughter also brought home a kitten from the barn where she worked and took riding lessons, so I now had four.
Anyway, I took those cats in temporarily about six years ago now. I had to go away for a few days last year, and I called the original owner of the first three and asked her if she would stay at my place and take care of the cats. She did, and they knew who she was. Two of them ran right to her, and the third acted mad for a while but eventually came to her. (The boy we got afterward will run to anyone who has food.)
My daughter is at college, but when she comes home, they run over to her, too. Cats do remember.
What happened last night reminded me of this thread. Came back from a convention (3 days) and my Gizmo was an attach-a-cat up until I had to leave for work. He was extra cuddly the entire night with his head on my pillow. If I tried to move my hand, he'd pull it right back where he wanted it. Extremely cute like woah.
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