by Valerie Byron
(Hamilton, On Canada)
Twenty-one years ago when I was walking my daughter home from Jr. Kindergarten we spotted a little black cat sitting in the middle of the road looking quite lost. I scooped her up and set her down on the sidewalk. Immediately she began to follow us.
I went in the store with cat in hand and Mr. Garner told me she had been wandering around for a few days. I went out side and put the small cat down and we walked home with Tiffany right behind us. Then all of a sudden she darted across the road.
“Oh she’s found her home” I said to Amanda. Much to my dismay the porch she ran to was our porch!
“She picked our house mommy” Amanda was overjoyed and decided to call her Tiffany because she liked a tape her older sister had and the singer was Tiffany.
Much to her father’s dismay our cat population became three. Tiffany turned out to be a beautiful cat with soft green eyes and a soft black coat that turned chocolate brown in the sunlight. Tiffany was a ferocious mouser. She was very gentle except when it came to Buddy the Love Bird!
It wasn’t until about four years later while at the Vet’s I saw a cat poster and to my utter shock there she was up on the poster with a caption that said something along the line of “terrific mouser and sweet melodious voice”.
Even now when I close my eyes I can feel her soft fur at my finger tips and hear her sweet voice. She lived to be fifteen. I will always remember her passing as a day when my heart seemed enormously heavy. She was a beautiful cat in every way.
Sincerely,
Valerie Byron