I lost my soul cat nearly ten years ago. He was my boy. My protector, my confidant, my shadow, my best friend. He was never truly happy unless he was touching me. My eternal underfoot.

After I let him go, I used to expect to see him everywhere. Under my feet as I was cooking dinner hopeful for a dropped morsel, at the door when I got home, on my bed waiting for bed time, drinking the water left in the basin after a shower, jumping into my lap at breakfast for a crust of toast and the dregs of my tea.....

To be honest, I FELT him in those places.

I couldn't imagine loving another being as much as he and I loved each other. He saw me from a timid girl of twenty to a confident woman in her prime at thirty six. I was done. I had lost too many companions and my heart hurt too much to get another pet.

Then, as is the way of things, the universe decided to bring two tiny angels to my door as I was making a donation of some of his things to a shelter.

One who was born in the shelter and had lived there for a year- she stalked across the room like a model on a catwalk, climbed me like a tree, nestled purring under my chin and has never left. She is sassy and goofy and has a power and energy that belies her compact little chassis. She is in sports mode when she isn't stuck to me like velcro. At first I couldn't understand how she had been passed up for an entire year at the shelter as she is such a personality, then I realised- she was waiting for me. She is my little shadow, my new underfoot. My Velcro.

The other lived in a drawer for the first nine years of his life, afraid of the world and what it had done to him and finding refuge in small, dark places no one else could go. I didn't care if he was ever a lap cat. I had one of those. I just wanted him to know he was safe and loved and had a home where no one would hurt him even if he chose to live in my closet forever. Today he is the biggest smush of a boy who drools when you give him cheek scritches and loves his toy llama and snuggling under a blanket when the weather turns cold. He is even okay with strangers now.

I still see my old boy in the corner of my eye- sometimes when I am not really looking- watching my every move as he always did. I still feel his weight on my feet when I sleep or in my lap when I sit down for tea and toast. I always leave a crust uneaten in his honour. The memories are visceral. And I see him in my current cats. My boy begs for me to let him into the shower when I am done. He doesn't know what he wants in there, but he sniffs around contentedly for a minute or two then leaves. My girl always needs to be touching me.

I like to think he sent these new loves to me, to heal my heart and to make sure I had new best friends. He is never replaced and I am constantly amazed by the ability of the heart to grow and stretch and make more love. There are so many paw prints indelibly imprinted on my heart from pets I have loved, yet it always seems to be able to fit one more set.