Oh BLESS! My parents had a similar situation with the cat I grew up with - he'd belonged to the people who'd moved out from next door, and the 'dad' eventually came back and tracked him down and was delighted to know that he was safe and sound and with a new family. My mother half-expected him to try to take Black Cat (aka Tom) away, but instead he brought a shedload of catfood and occasionally dropped by to visit. Sweet.

How odd that she went stir crazy and ran off with a rough kitty from the wrong side of the tracks! And then moved in with a new human!

My parents' present cat showed up on their doorstep in similar circumstances, actually - just appeared out of the blue and moved in. She keeps trying to find my Dad, and glaring at the rest of us - we are clearly inadequate minions, and have not been properly trained in cat obedience.

Funeral is today. I hope it doesn't weird you out, but I'm actually tangentially referring to you in my speech; talking about how to condense his life and personality into a few sentences & mentioning how I'd described him to you, and how that's true but inadequate, before going on to list various things that will always remind me of him. (First on the list - the sound of someone blowing their nose into a linen handkerchief with a sound like a whole herd of angry elephants.)