I just thought I would share an experience I had yesterday. I took a much needed nap, and before I fell asleep bear-cat was on my mind...I wrote in my journal two sentences before falling to sleep. They were: Bear cat come visit me. Bear cat come give me love!
So, I went to sleep not expecting anything. I wrote what I wrote as a simple wish for special tokens in the future.
So I had a dream that I was woken up by that signature MEOW! I rose from bed (in my dream) to see the shocking, joyous sight of Bear, curled up in front of my bedroom door, asking for me to let him out of my room....typical. I stared at him, happy and in awe of his return. I picked him up, and he meowed again. I smelled his fur, I embraced him, and I began walking down the hallway to put him in the front room. When I got to the back door he wanted out...out of the house! He struggled to get out of my arms.
I feel like this dream is his message to me that all is well, and he still exists in some form, he loves me, and he needs me to let him GO...He was still sick in the dream, and I think he needs to me to let him go so that he can let go of feeling sick. Maybe my memory is keeping him from moving on.
Who Knows? I am greatly comforted by his answer to my plea, nonetheless.

What an intriguing dream--I agree that Bear Cat was sending you a message of some kind.

My situation was similar to yours in that I took in a cat who had been a stray for many years. He too had the scratch marks, plus he was malnourished, had an eye infection, and had clearly been abused. However despite his terrible life he had the sweetest gentlest disposition of any pet I ever had. He was never aggressive, even when he felt threatened.

I had to put him to sleep because of cancer. I then had three dreams about him--in the first two he was sitting on my lap and I was petting him. In the third dream, he was sitting by the door. I went to pet him and he was very affectionate, but he let me know in no uncertain terms that he wanted to go out. So in my dream I opened the door to let him outside. That was the last clear dream I ever had about him.

I am struck by the similarity of our two dreams. Maybe our strays are trying to tell us that they love us but they want to move on.