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 My cat Ivo entered my life as a stray. One evening after work, I was at the grocery store picking up dinner. I ran into my neighbor, Brian, who told me a worker in the coffee shop on the first floor of our building found a stray cat wandering around the back hallway of our apartment building. She thought it had snuck into the building to get out of the cold one evening when the coffee shop workers left the back door open to take out the trash. Brian was picking up food and litter, and didn't know what exactly to get. I helped him choose some things, and went home to see the cat.
When we got back, there was this skinny, ragged black and white cat sitting in our back hallway. It had obviously been on the streets for a while, and was really thin with an abscessed ear and a cracked tooth. The coffee shop girl was petting it, and it was rubbing up against her and purring up a storm. She had to go back to the shop, so I sat with the cat while Brian got a plate to put the cat food on. The cat climbed into my lap, snuggled down and purred, and then fell asleep in my hands. Brian and I had to wake it up to feed it. Snow was forecast for that evening in Cleveland, so I took the cat up to my apartment to get it out of the elements. Once again, within minutes, it had snuggled up, this time on my futon, purring away.
There had recently been an expose in the local news about the county shelter, revealing that was killing hundreds of cats and kittens yearly. Neither my neighbor nor I wanted to take the cat to the shelter, fearing it too would be killed. He couldn't keep it, because he is allergic to cats. So, I agreed to keep it while we tried to find its owner. I had wanted to have a cat for a long time, but I for six years I had been a graduate student with a very erratic schedule, and I thought it was unfair to have any pet under those circumstances. But now, I was a post-doc with a much more 'human' schedule, and I was ready-emotionally and financially and time-wise-to have a pet. I decided I'd keep this little thing, if no one claimed it.
That night, after settling down in my apartment, the cat climbed into bed and slept with me all night. Next day, I was busy picking names, and my neighbor suggested Ivo (I pronounce it Eevo), which is a male name, because at first I thought she was a he. The day after that, I took her to the vets to treat the injuries she got while living on the streets. The stray cat I thought was a he turned out to be a she. I never did find her owner.
I believe that fate had a hand in choosing Ivo's name. Ivo is a man's name, and there is a Saint Ivo recognized by the Catholic Church. Saint Ivo was a lawyer, and is the patron saint of canonical lawyers. But more than that, Saint Ivo is the saint of abandoned and unwanted children. Ivo the cat was less than a year old when I found her, and had obviously been "owned" at some point in her life-the vet discovered that she had already been spayed when I took her in. But, her injuries showed that she had lived a hard life on the streets.
Ivo is not a typical lap cat. In fact, she doesn't like to be held, and doesn't sleep on my lap anymore. But, she lets me know in so many little ways that she loves me. She has this way of sitting at my feet when I'm on the futon, giving me such a loving look. She demands her petting every morning first thing after I wake up, and first thing when I get home in the evening after work. She gets so excited, she purrs and meows at the same time. She sounds like she is chirping, so I call her Chirpy Girl or Meepers. Just recently, she has begun to allow me to hold her and pet her. She's actually started kneading on my arm during these sessions. But, I make sure to put her down as soon as she wants, so that she thinks of it as a good thing and not a bad thing. And when she hears her 'Uncle' Brian in the hallway of our building, she comes running. He takes care of her when I'm gone, and she'll sit on the futon with him to gossip and get her loving.
 I believe that Ivo is a gift from God, sent to me during a really rough patch in my life. Every day I pet her and tell her how special she is, and how lucky I am to share my life with her. She may not be the most "loving" cat, but I don't doubt one minute that she truly does love me.
So, since October 2001, my heart and soul has been owned by that straggly little stray from the back hall of my apartment building.
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