I opened the door one afternoon to find my neighbor holding a tiny, mewling calico kitten. “She’s the sweetest thing,” he said. He handed her to me and headed home before I could gather the wits to object.
The cat had countless ticks, ear mites, fleas, worms — all the usual ailments of a stray. My daughter and I bathed her and cared for her, and within forty-eight hours the kitten transformed from a scared sickly thing to a merciless sprite. My seven-year-old was delighted, feeling the satisfaction of loving something back to health. My three-year-old was overjoyed to find something slow enough for him to catch. And my husband’s blood pressure dropped when he finally paused long enough to hold the sleeping kitten in his lap.
— Jessica Mesman Griffith, in Daily Inspiration for Women, p. 100
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