Tommy

My mom didn't realise I'd trained him to like cheese, until she was opening a crinkly wrapper that sounded like cheese, and he sat there staring at her. He would stare at you if you unwrapped cheese, with his head cocked to one side like he was saying, "You're going to share that, aren't you?"

The day we met, I had absolutely no idea. I had been begging for a kitten for ages (I was six), and my parents kept putting it off. He was the runt of a litter of feral kittens. The mother had taken off with the others and left him there in our yard. My mom came home from errands, saw him lying there on the front lawn and went to check on him. All he could manage was a weak squeaky little meow, and my mom told him, "Oh, you're coming home with us!" My parents were worried about telling me, because they weren't sure he was going to survive. My mom had to do chest compressions several times, and he couldn't swallow the milk my dad rushed to get from the vet. I got home from school, and they explained what was going on. I taped my school picture up for him in his little cardboard box.

What I miss most is taking naps with him. He would lay next to my pillow or clutched to my chest like a teddy bear, and would purr until I fell asleep.

They had this funny habit: He didn't like being separated from me. He would wait outside my closed bedroom door for me to wake up, and if I wasn't waking up soon enough for his liking, he'd meow to try and wake me up. He also wouldn't leave my side if I was sick and would pretend he was sick too. He even did this when I had knee surgery in my twenties.

One of my favourite memories is from 9 years after he died. I was in a different country at that point, about to get married. I had a dream that I was at my old house, and Tommy had come to greet me and rub against my legs. Then he went past me to the couch in the living room behind me, where my fiancé was sitting with his legs stretched out and jumped on his lap. I like to think that Tommy came back to express his approval of my choice in husband. Him being a cat magnet throughout our marriage has reaffirmed that approval.