In Loving Memory of Feanor
Feo, My Sweet Baby Boy
Some cats arrive in our lives as quiet companions. Others arrive like a story you didn’t know you were missing. Feanor was the latter—his tale beginning on an ordinary day at a Petco adoption event, where chance and fate shook hands.
I hadn’t gone looking for a cat that day. My dear friend Shanda, like a sister to me, had invited me along while she was seeking a pet to keep her company after her boyfriend returned home from a visit. But then I saw him—or rather, he saw us. Eyes like twin lanterns in a dim harbor locked with ours. There was something there—stillness wrapped around intention. Shanda saw it too. And in that moment, she decided to give me an early birthday gift, one that would become the greatest present of my life.
Feanor, or Feo as I came to call him, settled into my home like he’d always been there. Sweet, loveable, and endlessly attentive, he didn’t simply share my space—he shadowed my days. He was in the bathroom while I showered, as if standing guard against invisible threats. He was at the door when I came home from work, greeting me like I’d been gone for ages. And in the quiet ritual of my mornings, he’d plant himself on my leather vest, eyes heavy with that silent plea: Stay home. Stay with me.
He had his peculiar ways—anyone who’s loved a cat knows that’s part of their magic. At night, he would press his muzzle into my ear, breathing through his mouth in a way that was as strange as it was intimate, before curling at my feet to sleep. And while he could tolerate other cats, humans outside his chosen circle were met with a cool reserve.
There were moments that defined him in my memory. One in particular still makes me smile. My boyfriend was visiting for the first time. We were curled up on the couch when Feo padded in, sat squarely before us, and fixed my boyfriend with a glare sharp enough to cut glass. It was the unspoken declaration of a cat who knew his claim: "You are in my spot." We laughed, but Feo’s gaze did not waver.
He was my Sweet Baby Boy, my reason to get up in the morning, the soft and constant presence against the noise of life. I wanted him to live forever—not in the abstract way we sometimes wish for more time, but in the way you long for a perfect note in a song never to end.
Feanor was more than a pet. He was my son, my confidant, and the greatest gift Shanda ever gave me. And though his paws no longer follow me from room to room, his absence is filled with the echo of his love. I will miss him, every day, for all my days.
