My grandmother had always been the kind of woman who believed every living creature deserved a little kindness.
She fed birds before breakfast, left water outside for neighborhood dogs, and kept a small bowl of milk on her porch for any stray cat that happened to wander through her garden.
So when she announced that a new visitor had started coming around, nobody in our family thought much of it.
“It’s the biggest cat I’ve ever seen,” she told us over Sunday dinner. “Golden fur, beautiful eyes, and a purr that sounds like an old tractor.”
My father laughed.
“Mom, are you sure it isn’t somebody’s oversized house cat?”
“Oh, I know a cat when I see one,” Grandma replied, waving her fork at him. “This one is just a little shy.”
She called the animal Golden.
Every morning, she placed a bowl of food near the wooden steps leading to her porch. By the time she returned from watering her flowers, the bowl was usually empty.