By Brendan Rees
A Hampton Park pensioner has been left distraught after her beloved cat died, six days after it went missing.
Gwyneth Van Dort was inconsolable after her furry friend, who was about 12, was found lifeless among clothes in her garage as her landlord was cleaning up on Friday 4 September.
“I’m really devastated. She’s so loving and adorable and affectionate. She’s like my baby,” she said of her tortoiseshell cat.
“It is killing me inside. She was so close to me … I could’ve rescued her.”
Ms Van Dort, 76, said she had searched everywhere around her property, including the garage which she shares with her landlord in storing belongings.
“I went through the side of the garage, the back, but I didn’t go in the middle section,” she said.
“No one was around to open the door for her … I’m really beside myself. I would’ve been able to rescue her.
“She was amongst my clothes. You can’t even reach up where she was; she must’ve been very distressed.
“I’m really angry with myself.”
Ms Van Dort had taken her cat named Princess to the vet about a week earlier after discovering swelling to her stomach.
“She was getting well really quickly. Every four hours I had to give her the nutrients,” she said after Princess fought a recent battle with intestinal tumour.
She said Princess went missing after last seeing her enjoying the sun in her driveway.
But when she didn’t return days later, Ms Van Dort began to fear the worst, saying it was completely out of character for her to wander off.
When she heard the tragic news, she was heartbroken: “She’s my four-legged special friend. I miss her so much.”
To make matters worse Ms Van Dort, a retired nurse, said she was lonely and isolated without Princess.
Her belongings have also been stuck in storage for several years, and she is desperate to move out of her share home and find another place.
She described Princess as “the most beautiful cat on this earth” and “the only thing that I had”.
