Never in my life have I ever felt so sorry for a cat. Ebony is deaf and blind, also feral and terrified of people.
She first came to me, hungry and homeless in Florida. I fed her with the others on the porch then one day noticed her crossing the road, a car not far behind her. blasting it’s horn. She continued her leisurely walk diagonally across the road until she turned and suddenly became aware of the car. She bolted into the woods.
I finally managed to capture her and get her to a vet who confirmed my suspicions that she was completely deaf. She also told me she was blind in one eye and rapidly losing sight in the other.
When I brought her home from the vet that day, I decided she should be an indoor cat as it wasn’t safe for her to be crossing roads withought the necessary senses. She has been with me now for about 10 years and is nearing the end of her life. She needed to see a vet a few years ago as she was not eating. She was trying to eat, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to take food. After some dental work, she was fine but now has the opposite problem; she eats and eats and eats without being able to maintain her weight. I give her between 3 and 4 cans of food per day yet she continues to become thinner.
She isn’t a nice cat. She can’t be petted and if you try, you will end up with long scratches and picks on your arm. And I have tried. At one time I thought that giving her a couple of pets each day and making sure she knew it was me that was feeding her would eventually cause her to trust me. Not so. I can get two pets in before she locates me and warms me off with those sharp little claws.
I will miss her when she is gone even though it’s been impossible to have the normal kind of relationship one does with a cat. I think I’ll miss her most because of that, because she never has known the comfort of a human hand.
Update: Ebony passed away in October 2020. Before I buried her, I had to pet her for awhile. She needed to know that I cared and that I could be trusted.