Cuddles came out of the woods and adopted us.
Cuddles left us when the abhorrent encroachment on her heartshare that was Callie (actually more of a tortiseshell than a calico) had half-siamese kittens and we kept Panther.
Cuddles moved in with a family down the street and was eventually killed by a car.
Callie and Panther did not cuddle like Cuddles, nor were they so badass.
Callie hated her own skin, and seemed mostly miserable most of her life. Though she was my sister's, she lived with our parents until . . . she either crept off to die or got hit by a car.
I don't really remember when that happened, but Callie and Panther both made the move PA to DC; they did not like it.
Panther ran away like Cuddles when Nastia and Psilopsybone moved in (they came home with me from college). Nastia was the roommate's, but he was always running off to europe and not particularly thoughtful (see leash story), and I could handle two as well as one.
Then I ran off to europe for a semester while N&P lived in 5lack House with 9 people and several other cats (can't remember them all, but curtis was the runt). And Nastia was "lost" by the denizens of 5lack House during that semester. Psilopsybone had a bb in the base of his tail. I came back and made it 10 people. Then Psilopsybone lived with me through the remainder of college. He was supposed to stay with my parents while I went off for a year in Korea, but he left.
I like to think that he set of on foot for Midwestern College Town, OH, where he knew he could find a dynamic social environment of young people preferable to the staid suburbs of old people, but, sometime before my parents carefully and belatedly informed me that he was probably "lost" or dead a cat addressed me in a bitter and beautiful dream, and I have decided that 'bone is dead, and that was him. I don't really publicly espouse such transcendental sappiness, but it was a poignant dream nevertheless.
They all had first rate veterinary care throughout their lives. But they were clawed, they were inside-outside cats with more or less total autonomy, except Callie and Panther who were probably terribly scarred by toddler traumas: tail pulling and moonwalking and kittyflips and, my personal favorite, sneaking up on while asleep.
Cassie I inherited from an exgirlfriend's grandmother, when exgirlfriend couldn't take her. Cassandra, who barked. If she was really the age I was told she was when I met her, then she was 9 or 10 when I inherited her. She had lost an older and more dominant partner-cat, and a keeper and her granddaughter. I can't vouch for her veterinary care, but she got some trips to the vet out of me, without any conclusive gnoses.
During the first months we "lost" her several times. Once she ran away and came back some months later - I think she went home and found no one familiar there and came back. Next she was "lost" for several more weeks, and we thought she had run away again (though we'd kept a closer watch on the doors) and then discovered her hidden behind my father's computer - a warm, dark, tight space. Eventually she relaxed a bit. And lived there for some years.
She was mostly miserable, having a similar obsessive hatred for her own skin to Callie's - and was in other ways similar to that cat. She might even have overlapped 'bone a little.
She lived at Club Faber where it was clear she was either quite old or very sick, having a bit of trouble with food, and then in a small house with me and a cohabitrix who didn't really get along with her. Eventually she went out and didn't come back. Cohabitrix was quietly pleased.
I was pretty sure I shouldn't get another cat then, and have been pretty sure that I can't offer a cat the kind of freedom that I think it ought to have in my apartment, so I haven't gotten one since.
Cassie and 'bone both talked funny. Cassie barking: 'argh 'argh, and talking apparently idly - e.g., when there is no feed me/pet me/ change the litterbox/here's a mouse liver/open the door type purpose -- and 'bone not really using vowels: Brrrtfh? Mrrphs? P'arrrrfls.
'Bone also suckled kind of creepily on certain fabrics, and fancied himself a literary critic. Cassie, like her namesake, just said the most incredible things.
The lesson seems to be, don't get a cat unless you've got plenty space, and don't plan on going anywhere for 12-15 years.
Do you think then, that cats, themselves, believe in kitty heaven?
Where no matter how hard you play with them, mice don't break. Mmmm...Mice.