We arrived carrying a six-pack and a homemade coleslaw, standard offerings to a barbeque with friends - only to be greeted by excited kids who had found a bunch of tiny kittens behind the garden shed. I didn't want to look, I'm sure they're fine I said. But they were waiting for me to turn up with pity, time and deep pockets, to take this kitten under my ever expanding wing and nurse him back to health.
Welcome to our family Bug.
He was emaciated and dehydrated, his eyes were stuck together and swollen with a mass of yellow gunk. One eye was so large it looked like it might explode. He smelt like that sweet and sickly smell of death. I syringed water into his minuscule mouth and encouraged him to eat some meaty gravy which he did with gusto. He hissed, he sneezed, he did not like being in the cat box and after the evening, he came home with me forever.
He mewed loudly at night, terrified to be in human company and away from the life he knew. I carried this palm-ful of kitten onto the sofa and placed him down my top, next to my heart. My breathing sent him to sleep and we passed the night gently before I could find kitten milk and the proper food the next day.
This tiny white ball of pink skin and sparse white hair ignited such maternal feelings, a physical sensation to protect and save this cat. A nurturing so intense that I knew he was going to make it.
