Just one of his nine

Meg had lost track of exactly how old Yellow Yeow was.  The big friendly cat had been hers since she had found his mother with two kittens huddled on the side of the road near the pine forest.  The mother cat immediately approached Meg, so we knew she had been someone's pet and had been "dropped off" when she had
made herself persona non grata by having kittens.  Meg was in high school when she found the cats.  We named the mother cat Gypsy and let her move in with the barn cats.  We found a home for one kitten and Meg kept the other.  She named the kitten Jade for his green eyes.
Jade was never a very ambitious cat.  He much preferred lying stretched out on Meg's bed or in the sun on the lawn to  cavorting with the barn cats or seeking mice in the tall waving grasses of the fields.  So he spent the majority of his first years while Meg finished high school and attended community college just being her buddy.
Meg's sister was living in the south.  She had a nice two bedroom apartment and invited Meg to come down.  At the time Meg was
trying to avoid the attentions of a certain boy, so she happily
packed her bags, placed Jade in a cat carrier and left for Tennessee.  The apartment was on the second floor.  Each apartment had a balcony overlooking the tenant parking lot.
Feeling certain that the cat would not attempt to leap off the balcony but realizing that he probably was missing the ability to
go outside, Meg left the door to the balcony open so Jade could sit out there at will. Jade spent hours on the balcony dozing in the sun.
One day the neighbor met Meg in the hallway and happened to remark to her that she thought the little tree she had in a pot on her balcony might be making baby trees.  She revealed that she had been finding strange mounds in the soil in the large pot. Meg did not put much thought into the neighbor's story until one day
when she was in the parking lot and happened to look up at her balcony, there was Jade--carefully balancing on the small ledge which ran across between the balconies, tiptoeing towards the neighbor's apartment. Meg held her breath,  She dared not speak lest it would cause Jade to turn and lose his balance.  The two story fall to pavement would possibly end his life.  As she watched,  Jade reached the neighbor's balcony and squeezing between the columns, entered.  Meg could not see what Jade was doing up there; however, she did notice the potted tree begin to wave about some.  In a matter of minutes Jade reappeared from between the bars and stepped delicately out on the narrow ledge.
As though he performed this daily, he moved quickly back to the confines of his own balcony.
Well that explained the "baby tree" buds in the neighbor's  pot and also the reason for so few  lumps needing scooping from Jade's litter  box.  Meg never told the neighbor.  The neighbor likely wondered why those mounds never sprouted.
Meg did not stay long in Tennessee.  The persistent boyfriend
came to visit and persuaded Meg to return with him. 
Within the year they had married and a year later they had a son.
Jade had a new person to adore, and love this baby he did.  The baby loved the cat too, the purring sound which sang him to sleep and the big, warm, golden body that snuggled next to his.  When the baby began to talk, one of the first things he said was "yellow yeow", referring to his feline pal.   And so  the cat became Yellow Yeow.
He had used up at least one of his nine lives down there in Tennessee being a tight rope walker.  He had several more to go.
But those are for another story at another time.