It’s incredible how we can build as close a relationship as with a family member with a creature so different from us human beings!
It happened with my cat Willy, and now that an obscure incurable illness has taken him away, all that’s left is the memory of the best moments spent stroking him, playing hide and seek, and why not, replying accordingly to his mewings.
Found 9 years ago in the area where they were building the Dadone complex in Como, Willy - the reddish tiger, become the family’s pet, a catalyst of our relations in times of trouble and in the course of time showed us that “divine feline detachment with which he measured himself with the things of the world”.
The quote is by Federico Roncoroni and comes from his Amici Mici published by Edizioni Ulivo, as are these lines which Willy certainly knew:

The true owner
A cat you believe you own
and he just to please you
makes you believe
he loves to be owned.
Actually
the truth lies elsewhere.
You do not own a cat,
ever:
the cat owns you.
Now that you know it,
never forget it:
you are the cat
of the cat you own.

Thanks to all my dear friends who stood by me at such a difficult time.