Farewell, Freyr
It is with very heavy hearts that Chad and I say goodbye to our little boy-cat, Freyr.
In the summer of 2000, we were looking for a kitten that could handle two ferrets (Fidget & Hotspur) while keeping Ghost company. As luck would have it, my friend Steph just happened to have a bunch of kittens. We wanted to see how the kittens would react to the ferrets, so we let Fidget & Hotspur pick out the newest member of the family. I’ll never forget how the kittens spilled out everywhere when Steph opened the carrier. The ferrets went crazy chasing the little furballs and the kittens went bananas trying to get away. Except the red tabby kitten with hints of platinum, who would shortly be named Freyr. He wasn’t exactly brave, but he wasn’t freaking out and trying to get away. He was the one.
Upon being presented with her little brother, Ghost exhibited the typical disdain she kept for any new cat we would bring home in the ensuing years. The ferrets though, they loved the new toy in their life. Poor Freyr. Poor handsome, soft, red tabby Freyr. He was dragged under the sofa and stashed so many times. Our little boy just cried and squealed and, fortunately for him, soon became too big to be stashed. He was exactly what we needed.
One Spring Freyr became “Momma” Freyr to a litter of feral kittens that were born under our pine tree. Ghost wanted nothing to do with the little heathens. But Freyr, oh he heard their cries and came barreling down to see what the Hell we were doing to those babies. They were not sure of us humans, but they took to Freyr immediately as he set about bathing them and taking care of them. They were his. One of those kittens would stay with us, Freyr’s baby Seti. And woe be it to anyone who upset her. He took care of his baby Seti until we lost her.
At the time Freyr came to us, we lived in a small house. It had three rooms on the first floor. We would be in the living room and out of nowhere, Freyr would start crying, as if to say, “Where are you guys?” We’d call for him and eventually he’d find us and stop crying. We started saying Freyr was lost any time he cried like that. He got lost a lot. We never said he was brilliant, but he was soft and loving and that was enough for us. Among Freyr’s other hobbies, besides getting lost in a tiny house, included demanding to go out in the back yard so he could eat plants, sitting high up on whatever was available, and walking on a leash. Unlike every other pet we have ever had, we could put the ridiculous hot pink harness (bought for Ghost) on him and he would walk around on a leash better than most dogs I know. We could walk him around the block and he’d go, tail held straight up, swaggering like a tiger. He gave no cares whatsoever.
Freyr, for some unknown reason hated dogs. And he was willing to try to rid the world of their presence, one at a time. One of the best Freyr stories, the one that I always think of, is this. We were babysitting Mom’s rottweiler Major. Now Major lived with cats and ferrets and was just a happy (big) dog. I had just come home and was bringing Major inside with me. I walked into the dining room. She was on my left. I looked into the living room – the french doors were open and I could see Chad on the sofa also to my left – and suddenly this: Chad shouting loudly, Freyr flying through the air towards me and Major; legs extended, claws flexed, tail puffed up and straight and screaming like a banshee! I grabbed Major and sorta hipchecked her into the kitchen and shut the door. Freyr landed, all puffed up and making some seriously insane noises. His fur was shedding and floating all over. I started yelling at Chad for throwing Freyr. He looked at me like I had lost my mind. He hadn’t thrown Freyr. When Freyr saw Major in HIS house, he used Chad’s thigh (now bleeding from claw wounds) as a launching pad for his flying attack on the dog. Yep. Nine pound Freyr was going after 100+ pounds of (clueless) dog. Major was just the first in a long line of canines Freyr went after during his 15 years. He tortured Harper, Deanna’s happy go lucky dog, quietly threatening poor Harper who was in a crate. It wasn’t until Harper’s howling got someone out of bed that Freyr was found out. And as soon as my friend Kim’s little miniature schnauzer Lexie walked into our house, Freyr was ready to turn her into pup nuggets. Freyr may have been 9 pounds, but he saw himself as a big red tiger. One of his last acts was to threaten a little white fluffy dog with grievous bodily harm. That was our boy.
So we bid our little boy cat a fond farewell. Fifteeen years is a long time, but it wasn’t really long enough. We thought he’d be around a lot longer. You were the good boy, Freyr. We’ll miss you.
