The First Present I Ever Bought Eddie, She Completely Ignored
Before she was mine, Eddie was a stray who lived on my porch. This is the story of a feather wand, a little bell, and what she taught me about giving.
Before Eddie was mine, she wasn’t anyone’s. She was a stray who had decided my front porch belonged to her, and she’d sit on my step like she was waiting for a bus that never came. I don’t know where she came from. She never told me. She just showed up one day and stayed.
If you’ve ever fed a stray, you know how it goes. I’d leave food out and go back inside, and she’d only eat once I was safely behind the door. Open it, and she’d vanish, then reappear an hour later as if nothing had happened. We weren’t friends yet. We were more like a landlord and a tenant who hadn’t signed anything.
And I wanted her to like me. That was the whole thing, really. Here was this little creature who owed me nothing and could disappear down the street forever if she felt like it, and some nights I actually lay awake worried she would. That she’d find a better porch, a better person, and I’d be left with an empty step and a bowl I kept filling out of habit.
So I did what people do when they can’t say what they mean. I went shopping.
I stood in the toy aisle way too long, holding things up and picturing how thrilled she’d be, even though I had zero evidence she was capable of being thrilled by anything. I came home with a feather wand, the nice kind with a little bell on the end, and, because I couldn’t help myself, a small brass bell on a ball that jingles when it rolls. I brought them home like an offering. Part of me really believed she’d understand what they meant.
She did not.
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I waved the wand around on the porch, dragging the feathers across the boards, absolutely certain this was going to be irresistible. Eddie watched from her step with the flat, unimpressed look of someone watching you explain her own job to her. The feathers twitched. She blinked. Then she looked away, like the whole thing was beneath us both. The bell did even worse. I rolled it toward her, it jingled once, wobbled off the edge of the step into the weeds, and that was the last I saw of it.
I brought the wand back inside and told myself she just needed time. I tried not to take it personally that I’d spent thirty dollars to be politely turned down by a cat who wasn’t even technically mine.
Here’s what I got wrong, and it took me weeks to see it.
One evening I was just sitting out on the step with her. Not trying anything. Just keeping her company at the careful distance she allowed. The wand was next to me, so I picked it up and moved it around, not really paying attention, the way you fidget with something while your mind is somewhere else. And the little bell caught the gap between two boards.
She came off that step like she’d already made up her mind.
For the first time since she’d shown up, Eddie played. Really played. Ears back, tail going, all four feet off the ground, chasing a bundle of feathers she’d snubbed for weeks. I stopped worrying about whether she’d stay. I was just there, on the step, in it with her, both of us being ridiculous in the last of the light. When she finally flopped over, worn out, she landed close enough that her back was almost touching my leg. Almost. She’d want me to say almost.
The toys hadn’t changed. I had. The first time, I was handing her a thing and asking her to pick me because of it. The night it worked, I wasn’t asking for anything. I was just down on the step at her level, present, willing to look a little foolish. That was the gift. Not the wand. The wand was thirty dollars of feathers. The gift was me finally sitting down where she was.
She lives inside now. The wand is on the bookshelf, half plucked and impossible to throw out. The bell is still somewhere in the weeds. And we still play most evenings. She pretends she’s above it every single time. She never is.
What’s the first thing you ever gave your cat? Did they want it, or did they teach you what they actually wanted instead? I’d love to hear. I got it wrong the first time, and I doubt I’m the only one.
