It was on a Tuesday. October 18, 1994 to be exact. My sister and I had just come home from having dinner out with our dad. Mom was house-sitting at a friend's house with her mother and we were alone with our dog, Happy. My sister went to put him out in the backyard when she heard a weird squeaking sound. The sound came from the main area of our backyard down a long walk way. We listened better and it sounded like a kitten meowing. We put Happy back inside and I walked down to the main area with a dying flashlight in hand. I walked over to a fallen beam from our sun roof and lowered the light behind the beam. There staring back at me was a little gray Tabby kitten. I quickly went to the garage to get a set of garden gloves and then went back to gather the kitten and bring him inside.

Happy was not fond of small critters, so we took the kitten into our bedroom and closed the door. The kitten was placed in our bathroom where he immediately went into attack mode. He hopped on the side of the bathtub and started hissing at us. I told him it was okay and reached a hand out for him to sniff. He took the hand as a sign of comfort and before I knew it, he was in my arms purring away.

My sister called Mom to let her know that we found a kitten in the backyard. "And where is this kitten now?" she asks. She explained what happened and she wasn't too pleased that we brought another animal into the house. The minute she came home and laid eyes on him, any annoyed thoughts of what we did quickly went away. The next thing to happen was her buying some cat food and supplies at the store! In her calendar booklet for that October 18 date, she wrote, "Cat came to stay."

And stay he did for almost 15 years. Toby lived a long and loving life. He was the sweetest little boy, always wanted to snuggle with anyone and was extremely affectionate. We have lots of pictures of him from the first month we got him until the night before he was put down. He will forever be in our memories as well as our hearts.