Here is her story.... from my sister.........
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~She was a young kitten in 2011, so if you think about it, she's almost 12 now. She stayed with my granddaughter between then and now, except for when that family ran on hard times. We rescued Lily from the basement, where she was terrified by all the noise of the house being emptied. When I was called, the house was empty, except for a few things in the basement...one being Lily. They were ready to either leave her in the house, or capture her and take her to the SPCA. I found her behind a ladder which was on its side leaning up against a wall. I did know her and had seen her throughout that time, however, she was always shy and would not approach any of the rest of the family.
When I saw her "frozen by fear" behind that ladder, I did not know what would happen when I went to pick her up, so I took a jacket and a cat kennel, and hoped for the best. I did have gloves on as well, however, she was so terrified that she did not move a muscle, and was glad to be in the confines of the kennel, with the coat securely wrapped around it. I took her outside immediately and put her into the car with us. From there, she was shuffled around for a few days, and then both she and her denmate, Jade, came to live with us. We kept her first in the bathroom, until she and Jade got used to being in a new "home", and finally they felt safe enough to eat and use the litter box, and even come out of hiding when we came in to feed them. We moved them into our spare room, and Lily went under the bed. That became her refuge for some time. They stayed with us like that for several months, until we were evacuated by the wild fires in 2021. She then went to live with a grandson and his family, where there were several large dogs, chickens, pigs, rabbits, and lots of other cats, including kittens. Lily wasn't sociable to begin with, so this new place was not to her liking. She proceeded to eat and hide, which ended up being an unhealthy situation for her, and she gained a lot of weight and became very standoffish. Sadly during this process, Jade escaped from the house and never returned, so Lily had to go it on her own.
The family could no longer keep her, and asked if we might take her back, and we knew that our very old and sick Fluffy would put up with her, if we kept her in the room she left here from, so that's what we did. She was a perfect little interloper, and did not offer to bother Fluffy at all. He came and went in her room, and she just watched him and stayed out of his way. As the days wore on, and weeks passed, Lily lost a lot of her unwanted weight. When she first came back to us, she resembled a football on very short legs. She didn't look happy and we were sure she wondered how her legs had gotten so short.
We lost our beloved Fluffy cat a short time ago, and we all missed him sorely. Lily knew something wasn't right and she searched all the rooms several times. We moved her things out of the bedroom, slowly, ever so slowly over several weeks, so that she would not fuss. We knew she had had a tough enough time already. Finally, we moved the last litter box out into the laundry area and her introduction to being an only cat was finally complete. Now, Lily zooms up and down the hallway, and looks much slimmer. In fact, her legs do look longer, as does her tail, whiskers, and so on. She will still lose a bit more weight so that she reaches her optimum size, and we can tell she feels better.
Lily has become a moderately social cat these days, and if you come to visit now, she will only take a short period of time before she comes to see what is going on. She seems quite well adjusted and is getting used to all the household noises.
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She has the more or less regular markings of a Tabby on her face, but her body is another story. Hopefully we will have some photos soon to show how beautiful and unusual her coat is.....
She is such a pretty girl and her legs are definitely getting longer..... ...
photo taken by my sister with her phone...I just cropped it and lightened it a bit ....