When my father was dying, I traveled a thousand miles from home to be with him in his last days. It
was far more heartbreaking than I'd expected, one of the most difficult and painful times in my life. After
he passed away I stayed alone in his apartment. There were so many things to deal with. It all seemed
endless. I was lonely. I hated the silence of the apartment.
But one evening the silence was broken:I heard crying outside. I opened the door to find a little cat on
the steps. He was thin and poor. He looked the way I felt. I brought him inside and gave him a can of fish. He ate it and then almost immediately fell sound asleep.
The next morning I checked with neighbors and learned that the cat had been given up by his owner
who'd moved out. So the little cat was there all alone, just like I was. As I walked back to the apartment,
I tried to figure out what to do with him. Having something else to take care of seemed like the very last
thing I needed. But as soon as I opened the apartment door he came running and jumped into my arrns.
It was clear from that moment he had no intention of going anywhere. I started calling him willis, in honor
of my father's best friend.
From then on, things grew easier. With willis in my lap, time seemed to pass much more quickly. When
the time finally came for me to return home I had to decide what to do about Willis. There was absolutely
no way l would leave without him.
It's now been five years since my father died. Over the years, several people have commented on how
nice it was of me to rescue the cat. But I know that we rescued each other. I may have given him a home
but he gave me something greater.
1. When the allthor first saw the cat, she ___ .
A. was very happy
B. felt pity for him
C. didn't know what to do
D. was angry at his crying
2. The underlined sentence in the third paragraph suggests that the author __ .
A. needed something to fill the empty apartment
B. loved to stay alone in the apartment
C. was too busy and tired to keep a cat
D. needed something to take care of to kill time
3. The cat rescued the author by ___ .
A. making her feel better in her hard times
B. giving her courage to go on with her life
C. helping her tidy the apartment
D. telling her what life is
4. We can learn from the passage that __ .
A. Willis was named after his foiTner owner
B. Willis didn't like staying in the apartment
C. the author and Willis were both homeless
D. time passed quickly after the author kept Willis
5. What's the main idea of the passage?
A. A little lonely cat.
B. A painful experience.
C. How to take care of animals.
D. What I got from a little cat.