I have a kitten. Well, no, that’s not true; these days, he’s a cat. But I remember most clearly when he was a kitten.

When Chocolate was small, he was ill. Didn’t have a lot of energy, didn’t eat much, basically didn’t grow for about a month straight. To this day he’s small — only about seven pounds. His name is Chocolate, rather than something more original (like Ghirardelli) or accurate (like Miracle) because I named him while my ex drove ninety miles through the center of Allentown, trying to get us to the emergency place before he died. I didn’t want him to die without a name.

He’d gone right past convulsing and simply lay there, still and nonresponsive. His breathing occasionally grew odd, in a pattern I have since learned is called Cheyne-Stokes which means that death is near. Lewis parked and I ran into the emergency place, tiny black kitten held in outstretched hands, and begged them to save him. They asked how far we were willing to go to save him, and I said, again, “Just save him.” They did; his blood sugar was so low they couldn’t get a reading, and a simple glucose drip had him up and purring within moments.

But he wasn’t all better. He still wouldn’t eat, and I still had to take him to the vet’s several times. We had five kittens in the spare room, and we’d determined to give them all away — we had four cats of our own, and Lewis was strongly against any more. And strongly against spending large amounts of money on a kitten. Weeping, I’d agreed after one vet visit that I’d ask them to put Chocolate to sleep if he hadn’t improved, and, weeping, I did ask them — and let them talk me out of it.

I vividly remember his second trip to the emergency place. We’d caught him sooner that time, and he was only (only!) convulsing. Same problem, same solution, and the part that sticks in my mind is going back to visit him, a tiny scrap of black fur with one forepaw tucked neatly underneath, the other sticking out because of the IV, huddled into the center of a dog crate because all of the cat places were full. I reached in to pet him, and as soon as I touched him he began to purr. A huge, room-rattling, welcoming purr that, though I didn’t realize it until later, cemented he and I together forever.

I tried, I did. When I asked the vet to put him to sleep, and as they tried to talk me out of it, one of them brought him out to me. She set him down on the counter, and he reached up, wobbly on his little paws, and touched his tiny black nose to mine. And purred. I swept him up into my arms and vowed that he’d live.

It was a long fight. Multiple (expensive!) trips down to Philadelphia, about an hour away, to the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary hospital. Weeks of feed-every-three-hours-or-death. Weekends at the vet’s, more trips to the emergency place, feeding him anything and everything with calories that he’d accept. Tiny pieces of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Special wet food, squirted into his mouth via a syringe. Sips of orange juice, pieces of cookie. He was spoiled for years afterwards.

They never did figure out what was wrong with him. He just slowly got better, slowly started eating more. Even once he was eating regularly and out of danger, he would only eat wet food. Keeping wet food out all the time in a house with seven (yes, seven by this time) cats is a sure road to financial disaster, so I grew adept at feeding Chocolate and nobody else. In the middle of the night he’d squeak at me, and without actually waking up I’d crack the lid from the can of dry food, put it on my chest, and let him eat while fending off cats.

I tried several times to get him to eat dry food — I’d lock him into the computer room with me and a bowl of dry food, and wait. Five or six hours in he’d start crying, then acting weak, then he’d lay down and just pant. And I’d give him wet food, and he’d be fine.

After a few months of this I caught him in the kitchen eating dry food. He was so upset, partly because I caught him and partly because I laughed at him. After that, he got dry food like the rest of them.

One day I was eating a cheesesteak. He wanted cheesesteak, I wanted him to stop begging for food; did I mention it was years before he got over being spoiled? After several rebuffs he laid down on the floor, arched his back into roughly the position he got into way back when he had convulsions, and eyed me coyly over his shoulder as if to say ‘look Momma! I’m dyin! I’m dyin!’

I did check him just to make sure he was all right…but he didn’t get any cheesesteak.

He’s always been my cat, and I’ve always been his momma. He didn’t like Lewis. He didn’t like anyone, except for a select few of my friends (and one lady at the vet). I’m his and he’s mine and that’s that.

When I first started thinking about leaving Lewis and went to my mother’s for a few days to think things through, I brought him with me. He spent most of the first day there inside the box spring, and only came out when I went to bed. He explored the room for a while, and then crawled under the covers and curled up at my knees. He was scared and unhappy but he was with his momma, and that made things okay. For both of us — I’d've been a lot more scared and upset myself without him there.

Later, when I left Lewis, the one thing I absolutely would not compromise on was Chocolate. He was coming with me, hell or high water, I’d leave my wallet behind before I left my kitten. As it was I left with a lot of things without asking Lewis if it was okay, but the first thing, the very first thing I packed was my kitten.

He was good and didn’t cry for the couple of hours he was in the carrier while I desperately threw things into the van; he didn’t cry while my sister drove him and my other cats to my mother’s place. He was brave when I let him out into his new temporary home in my mother’s attic, but he kept sleeping under the blankets with me.

Then came the really hard part. He’s never liked the carrier, or the car. And I was about to take him on a three-day drive.

I packed his carrier in the front passenger seat so I could see him, and poke my fingers in the carrier for him to smell. He settled in and didn’t cry the whole trip. I let him out a few times to sit on my lap, once while we were stuck in traffic, and he sat there and solemnly watched the other cars creep by. He said hello to a kind lady at a drive-through who gave me a piece of cheeseburger cheese for him. He snuggled me in the hotel room each night, demanding to be let under the covers so he could curl up in his accustomed place by my knees.

And when I arrived here, he was the first of the three cats I brought with me to explore his new world. The first out on the porch (and to walk through the railing onto the grass, so that I had to run out the door and around to fetch him back). The first to hang from the bedroom window screens, demanding to be let out. He doesn’t sleep under the blankets any more, because he’s comfortable enough that he doesn’t need to — and he knows I don’t need him to, either. But if I’m asleep, he’s right there next to me.