Bear with me:
Each night before I go to bed I open the back door just to get a few deep gulps of the night air, this has been my habit for many years.
One bitterly cold January night 15 years ago I opened the door and on my doorstep were 2 kittens no more than a few weeks old, they were wrapped in newspaper, just newspaper, nothing else.
I quickly grabbed them, dashed back into the house and turned the heating back on, full blast. I wrapped both kittens in a bath towel and placed them near to the radiators while I quickly heated some milk with a few drops of glucose in it.
Returning to the kittens I picked them up and with an eye dropper began to force some milk and glucose down them and I stayed at this for over an hour.
All night I stayed with those 2 little mites and about 4 in the morning one of them gave up the ghost. I was devastated, I'd done my best but failed. I cursed the miserable bastard who had left them out in the cold but turned all my attention to making certain the 2nd kitten survived, he did.
The following morning I dug out a box from the garage, a box that had at one time contained Eccles cakes, from that day forward my cat was named. I lined the box with an old woolly sweater and later that day bought a proper basket for him to sleep in, not that he ever used it much, he found far more comfortable places.
Later that day he explored the place and obviously found it and me to his liking, he adopted me and decided to stay as my guardian
He grew up to be a fantastic animal, slept on my bed, woke me by chewing on my hair and purring like a 2 stroke in my ear.
Sometime during last night he died, he was old, 15 years roughly, not a bad age for a cat I guess that would have frozen to death had I not opened the back door all those years ago.
I am absolutely gutted and I'm not ashamed to admit I've cried tears I thought I didn't have.
I've buried Eccles under the shrub he spent so much of his time sleeping and later today I'll go to the vets to see if they have any kittens that no-one else wants.
There are people who will think "What the hell, it's just a cat" indeed he was but he was MY cat and I loved the little bugger, he was a fighter you see. He could have died that winters night but he fought for his life and he won.
That's about it
