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When I was younger my family went to visit an aunt that I had never met before. She was old and lived with an old black/white cat. When we went into the house the cat was curled up snoozing in the corner of the sofa and I sat next to him. He woke up, saw me and stretched out and grabbed my leg with both paws and buried his face in it. I started scratching his noggin and he began purring then dozed off and started snoring. He stayed like that until it was time for us to leave. Six years later we went to a reunion at her house and the place was packed, I managed to find room on the sofa and watched and listened to all the people in the living room, some were sitting but most were standing in little groups having their own conversations. I kept wondering where the cat was and then I spotted him coming down the hall from one of the bedrooms. He stopped at the entrance to the living room and began scanning all the people that were in there, I could tell his eyesight had gotten worse since I saw him six years earlier. He saw me and came running and hopped up on the sofa, grabbed my leg with both paws and purred himself to sleep just like the last time. I couldn't believe he remembered me.
Supposedly dogs remember a human who was good to them for five minutes, for twenty years, and for cats it's the other way around. (They forget in five minutes who was good to them for twenty years.) Bull feathers on the latter!
During her first summer, Weasie was stretched across the sill of an open living-room window enjoying the sunshine as she napped one afternoon. Then some bratty kids happened by, saw her, and started throwing small rocks and clods of dirt at her while making cat-hiss noises. She was shaken by the disturbance but not hurt, and had hopped down from the window while I approached to investigate what was hitting the screen. (The kids scooted off when they saw a person headed their way, so I never found out who they were nor did they ever return.) Never again did anything like that happen to her - to my knowledge. But neither did she ever, in her long life after that, show any desire to sunbathe in that same window.
On a happier note, Weasie rarely had trouble making a new human friend and got along famously with a particular next-door neighbor. This neighbor and I were (still are) good friends, also, and she often took care of cat-sitting duties when I'd go out of town. I wondered, when she moved to a different city and wasn't able to visit very often, how Weasie would handle it. Would the neighbor eventually be forgotten? I got my answer a year or so later. She was due to drop by one day, and in anticipation I situated myself on the front steps. The cat curled up in a shaded patch of the yard nearby and went into typical feline snooze mode. All of a sudden, Weasie sprang to all fours and ran to the sidewalk, meowing excitedly. Only after that did our friend's car materialize, turning the corner at the far end of the block. She had not only recollected that neighbor, she had sensed her impending arrival before I saw any sign of it.
I'm glad the "old" cat in the OP's story was still around those six years later!
Our late Tucker never liked my dad much, because when he was a kitten, my dad teased him once (by tussling his fur and tail). Tucker didn't like that and ran away. For the rest of his life, when my dad would visit, he would hide. And he was a social cat--so it was clear to me he remembered this interaction.
I've never doubted that cats have excellent long term memory, especially when it's something very important in their lives. I also believe they have the ability to disregard memories or things learned that they do not consider important... such as not using my leg for a scratching post, which they all learned at a very early age, but still try to do on occasion.
Most cat guardians know about their selective hearing, and I'm convinced they have selective memory as well.
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He was happy to see you again.
She had not only recollected that neighbor, she had sensed her impending arrival before I saw any sign of it.
