One late October night, three years ago, a lucky, special little cat came into my life.

My son's friend David had been waiting at a stop light of a major intersection, a very busy one, with lots of traffic. It was about 9 or 10 pm, dark and damp, because it had been raining, cool, but not really cold. Thunderstorms were forecast for later.

He saw the weeds moving by the side of the road and a little creature crawling through them. At first he thought it was a rat, but as he watched he could see it was a kitten. He got out and got the cold, wet little thing and wrapped it in his coat and went to pick up my son from work.

They then came to my house and my son walked into my room, where I was reading in bed, and said, "David found a kitten, but I don't think it's going to make it, poor little thing, poor little thing." She was tiny, about three weeks old, so frail. I called an all night vet and they told me that I could get cat milk substitute at the grocery store, so David went to get a can while I fed her some warm water from a medicine dropper. When he came back with the milk I warmed that and fed her. She practically inhaled about five droppers full.

While she ate she would put her paws on my hand and knead it, as she would have her mother's belly. How did she get out by the highway? It was next to a field. Maybe her mother had been a feral cat, not in good health, who had her and lived long enough to give her some sort of start, but then died in a quest for food or shelter for them. Did she have litter mates? When her mother didn't return did she start crawling on her own, with a remarkable will to survive? We'll never know any of this. There was a horrendous thunderstorm soon after she arrived at my house, which included hail. If David had not seen her it is doubtful she would have survived that.

What we do know is that she did survive. She went from canned cat milk many times a day to the food the other cats eat, to sometimes, unfortunately, catching things outside, for she is a fearsome hunter. It must be her mother in her. She has a prickly personality and sometimes will bite or grab with her claws, if not in the mood to be rubbed, but she hardly ever draws blood, it's more like a warning. But when she is loving there is no cat more loving, and she always comes when I call, no matter how far away she is, and she talks to me as she's coming to let me know she hears.

When she was about two months old my son accidentally stepped on her foot, and he's a big boy. It was obviously mashed and he took her to a vet, again, not our own, but the all night kind, who took xrays and said nothing was broken and sold him anti inflammatory medication. But they must have been wrong, because that foot is still larger than the others, as if disjointed and grown back together wrong, but it doesn't slow her down.

There is another cat who lives here called Little Brother. She used to follow him everywhere, although she has now outgrown that childish crush. But once she followed him across the street and was hit by a car. It was a glancing blow, but enough to break some ribs and to dislocate her right hip, and to necessitate another trip to the vet's, this time our own. She healed from that, too, but that leg sits a little crookedly and when she runs it kind of slings off to the side.

Any of these things could have killed her, but none did, and I suppose she has six lives left, and I am so grateful, because she is a joyful creature and brings such humor and grace and beauty to my life. She never grew as big as the other cats. She is small, but very muscular, I call her the "chick with the muscles" from a movie that I like. But because of what my son said when he carried her in, all those years ago, her name is Little Thing, but I call her Thinger and Humthinger and Pretty Thing, too. If you want to see the Thinger just look at the top of this page.

I remain MsAnthrope and ask that you remember that kindness to an animal will bring its own reward.