A Friend I Never Met

Happy Sunday Cats, Dogs, Birds, Humans, etc. (you get the picture!)…….

Today I want to tell you about a friend that I never got to meet….how can I call him a friend you ask?  Well, from what I know about him, he would be a wonderful friend – he sure was to my Mom so that means he would have been to ME too!

His name was Eddy.  Eddy was my predecessor.  Here are a couple of pictures of him taken in my parents OLD backyard before they moved here.

Eddy was about eight years old when he came into my Mom’s life.  She and my Dad had seen Eddy “around” the neighborhood occasionally and he even would hop over the chain link fence in their backyard and visit my Mom when she was lying around the pool.  He wore a collar – a very worn brown leather one.  He was very friendly and looked quite well fed and happy.

In October 1992 my Mom’s Dad passed away from a number of health ailments.  The day after he died, my Mom was sitting on the front steps outside the house just thinking about her Dad when up walked Eddy.  He pressed his forehead on Mom’s leg….she of course gave him a pet – he looked into her eyes and meowed, then hopped up into her lap for the first time ever and purred loudly.  He maintained eye contact with her for what she said was an “astonishingly long time”…..When she made a move to go back into the house, Eddy followed close on her heels and moved right in!

That’s when he became part of her family but not before she had canvassed the neighbors and one little boy told her that the cat had been abandoned by a military family that had moved away from the neighborhood some months before.  He said the cat very friendly though and “made his way” by visiting kindly neighbors’ homes and was able to get handouts and hunt thereby surviving.   After learning that, Mom decided Eddy wanted HER house to be HIS.  She named him Eddy (nobody knew his name), kept his old collar but installed a bell on it, took him to the vet for a checkup and shots where she learned his approximate age and health status (good!) and he was instantly happy (so were she and Dad!). 

Mom often tells Eddy’s story to people – and she always says she thinks her Dad sent her Eddy that day to keep her from being sad.  Cats with their “nine lives” reminded my Mom that life goes on……..and that her Dad would ALWAYS be with her.  He knew of her love for cats and knew that she was happiest when she had a cat (at least one!) in her life so who’s to say he didn’t send Eddy?

Eddy lived with my parents in their NEW house here in Warrenton for three happy years before he died.  

When Mom wrote her first mystery novel in 2005 her main character had a cat who ruled the roost……his name was Eddy.   Did I mind? (by then I had been adopted by my parents and was 5 years old) – absolutely not.  Because Eddy was a friend that I never met.

Happy Sunday!

Sammy