My wife and I had long been thinking about getting a cat, but not from a shop: we wanted one who really needed a home. And one day we saw him at a rescue centre. Ginger, with clever eyes and scars on his nose that showed his life had not been easy. The volunteers told us he had wandered the streets for a long time and had known cold, hunger and people's indifference.
We couldn't just walk past. So he came home with us, and we named him Simba, a strong name for someone who had come through so many trials.
At first he was very wary. My wife tried to stroke him, but he pulled away, as if testing whether people could be trusted at all. Time passed and Simba gradually opened up. First he began to purr quietly when we fed him, then he let us stroke him, and one day he jumped onto my lap of his own accord and fell asleep. At that moment I knew he had chosen us for good.
Now Simba is a full member of our family. He loves my wife most of all: she is the one he runs to first when either of us comes home, and she is the one he falls asleep beside at night. But he has a special trust in me too: only I can scratch him behind the ear in a way that makes him forget everything.
He doesn't really trust strangers. He comes over to sniff them but nearly always keeps his distance. And there is something touching about that, as if he is saying that trust isn't something you hand out to everyone.
Simba now has his own warm corner, a basket with a soft cushion, favourite toys and, most importantly, people who will never let him down. We are so glad we chose him back then, because he has made our home truly alive and warm.
And sometimes, when he looks at us with his big eyes, I feel he remembers everything. And he is grateful.
