Tonight, four years ago, I almost tripped over a tiny kitten on the garage step. For some well-timed reason, I looked down before I stepped, and two large, dark, highlighted eyes and a milk-drop nose turned up toward me. Long story shortened, the kitten adopted me, and I adopted him. Since I’d been watching a Pearl Jam documentary when I met him, I named him Eddie. Days later, I nicknamed him Eddie Cheddar, and sometimes lately when he’s being particularly silly, I rub his chin and call him Ed.

Today kicks off a several-day annual holiday celebrating the joys of life with Eddie. When I walk into the living room, he surprises me with his MC Hammer sideways jumping slide. He races me into the office, jumps on top of the desk chair so he can be my height. He lunges like Kramer through a doorway. Almost every day, Eddie lets me bathe him. He enjoys trying some of my dinners, even dishes too sophisticated for some kids.

Eddie is really, really adept at letting me take care of him, and more, appreciating that care. He finds every warm sunny or bedtime lounge spot I make for him. He curls up, squints and smiles and rolls upside down, his paws flopping in relaxation, white belly a mess of furry vulnerability. He relishes his cozy safety.

But four years in, Eddie is still terrified of strangers. Each doorbell ring and door knock spurs a sudden dog-like growl, and sometimes a tear through the house. He hides on a closet shelf behind my clothes. Although I’m sad he gets frightened, I want him to be comfortable in there, so I’ve covered the shelf with linens. I part the clothes and pet his forehead, reassuring, “It’s just you and me now, bud. It’s just us.”

I’ve known all along that Eddie was abandoned as a kitten. “Someone left him,” the vet suggested when she met him and assessed his health. He was a bit beat up and malnourished, and his bobcat ears were full of mites, but he was fine to take home for good. The longer, though, that Eddie is afraid around most people other than a slowly growing few, the more I think when he was a kitten, he was not just neglected, but abused.

I doubt I’ll ever know where Eddie came from or how long he was on his own out with the owls and hawks and coyotes, the Halloween Night crammed cars, yelling kids, and leaping flashlights. Or what happened to him in the company of people before his time in the wilderness. He was two months old when I met him; those two months are a mystery.

I marvel that regardless of those two months, Eddie trusted me to care for him within hours. And he has since learned to trust and play with others. I’m thankful every day that he’s happy, peaceful, and zany, and that he cares for me. I’ve loved all the animals called pets I’ve chosen since childhood. Eddie is the first pet I didn’t even consider, let alone plan for. But the instant he found me, he lit me up. I was ready to take care of him. One lesson this year as I celebrate, then, is clear: Joy, when it finds a doorstep, no matter where, is a gift, a call to nurture, to feed what makes it thrive ‒ to not just let joy in, but take really, really loving care of it.

‒ Laura Scheffler Morgan, 11/1/2017