When I was 5 years old, we acquired a long-haired black and white kitten named Fuzzy. I was in charge of naming him (thus the unoriginal name) and he was, for the most part, my pet. Over the next 9 years, we would have many other pets, including many other cats. But Fuzzy was always the “primary” cat in the house; he was the cat that would sleep with me when I was sick and snuggle with me when I was sad. When I was 14, my dad accidentally ran over Fuzzy’s tail with the car. Fuzzy retreated to the edge of the woods and wouldn’t let anyone near him. Obviously, his tail was broken, but no one could get close enough to him to help. After several days, he disappeared for good. Needless to say, I never really got closure or a proper goodbye.
Fast forward to the year 2004, I had moved to Tallahassee and had been living in my townhouse for 6 years. I was out on the front porch and saw this long-haired black and white cat walking down the street towards my house. My heart skipped a beat, as this cat looked identical to my cat Fuzzy. I tried calling the cat, but he was quite skittish and would have nothing to do with me. I became determined to find out about this cat.
I continued to see him and over time, he would get closer and closer to me. First he would come into the yard, eventually he would come up on the porch, where he would partake of the little bowl of food I left for him. After a couple of months of this, he let me pet him for the first time. Then one day, I opened the front door of my house and he wandered in. My orange cat, Kenny, found this to be most unacceptable. There was some hissing and growling and the black and white cat went back outside.
One day, I was leaving for work and it was pouring down rain. Who was on the porch, demanding to go in, but the black and white cat. I felt horrible, because I knew I couldn’t let this strange cat inside with my cat all day. I begrudgingly encouraged him to go under the house to stay dry. I could tell he was an old cat and feared that he would get sick staying out in the elements, so I started letting him in the house for longer stretches, until he was used to me and my other cat. I took him to get shots, brushed him and fed him. He was kind of small and neutered, so my mother had decided it was a girl cat and had named him “Lady.” We called him Lady for several months, likely causing him much emotional scarring.
During this time, I finally found one of my neighbor’s that knew a little bit about him. She told me that a neighbor on the other side of the subdivision had been feeding him for some time and that she called him “Big Boy” or “Big Guy.” Finally, I was getting some backstory. And I now knew that it was a male cat. Thus, his name was changed to “Brady.”
Right about this time, Brady disappeared for four days. He was still outside a great deal of the time, but this was a long time for him not to show up at all. I enquired of my next-door neighbor, who claimed to know nothing of the cat’s whereabouts. On a whim, I went to the animal shelter, where I found Brady crying frantically for me. He had apparently had a rough four days, as there was a sign on his cage reading “Does not get along with other cats.” That was it; he was about to be officially mine.
I sprung him from kitty jail and took him home. I confronted the neighbor who really had no good reason for having the cat picked up. Over time, Brady started sleeping in the house and getting along with Kenny.
Then one night, I was introduced to the lady who had been feeding him and watching out for him. Come to find out, she had been feeding him for 15 years and he was already a mature cat then! She had tried to get him to stay in her house, but she had other cats that he didn’t like. Even after I started feeding him, he was going to her house twice a day for a free meal. They had this whole routine for so long, that she would call our neighbor if he didn’t show up for his meal. She explained that he had been someone’s pet, years ago. He had belonged to an elderly man who died, and his wife didn’t like cats and put him out to fend for himself. That’s when she started feeding him. (I also found out another lady was feeding him, thus he was getting three dinners every night!)
Recently, due to another neighbor’s issues, I’ve been keeping Brady and Kenny inside all the time. This was causing Brady a great deal of stress, so we compromised. He will allow me to take him for a walk (with no leash) over to the other neighbor’s house to get his dinner and he visits all of his human friends and cat friends and then he is fine to go back in the house.
We believe that Brady has to be at least 18 years old, even though he still acts like a kitten. He has adjusted to being an inside cat and he and Kenny are best friends. Even though he has been called Big Boy, Big Guy, Bandit, Lady, Brady, and Pericles (his animal shelter/prison name), I will always think of hims as Fuzzy, Jr., Fuzzy’s angel, here to bring me closure.
