It happened in May, on a warm Saturday night, when the miracle of life happened, hidden in the corner of the old, gray shed. The mother, a sleek, black cat of about three years of age was giving birth to four kittens; all colored a smoky gray with streaks of black. Some had white paws, closely resembling socks. She then licked them preciously and they started nursing while the stars shined brightly in the deep, dark sky outside.
Flash forward to two weeks later. I walked out to the shed to check on the kittens. A kitten had died about a week before, because the mother was not careful on where she laid her body, so the kitten slowly suffocated to death. All the kittens were rambling around, checking out everything that could be taken in with one glace of their tiny, bright blue eyes that had opened just a few days before. The mother cat was nowhere in sight, but I just naturally assumed that she was out hunting for little, gray field mice or maybe the annoying gopher that was tearing up our luscious, green yard so I thought nothing of it.
Three days later, I decided that I had better check on the kittens again, since I had not seen the mother around the yard for a while. As I was walking towards our shed, I started �talking� to my kittens, calling out to let them know that I was coming so they would not get frightened. All of a sudden, I hear the most pitiful sound in the world, the kind that makes your stomach drop to your knees. It was a meow, sounding like a cross between a whine and a plea for help. I hurried over, scared of what I would find. Looking down into the box in which they were kept were three kittens, one barely moving and two trying to hard to get out of the confined space. The mother had not been feeding them, so they were slowly starving to death. Picking up the two kittens that could move, now named Jo and Roxy, I placed them into my sweatshirt pocket, while placing a towel over the bottom half of the near death kitten, hoping that it would keep him warm for the last night of his life. Kittens in hand, I then started walking slowly towards my house, while tears streamed down my face as I thought of the possibility of death by morning.
Entering the house, I kept thinking of what I could feed these kittens, something that could nurse them back to health. I settled on warming up some milk, but the problem was, I did not have a bottle to feed them. Rummaging around in the cupboard drawers, I hurriedly looked for anything, but I was unsuccessful. Resorting to trying to use my finger, I dipped it into the warm milk and hoped that they would suck on it and get enough nutrition to last for the night.
Hearing the door open was a welcome sound to my ears, all the while hoping that my dad would know what to do. As he walked into the kitchen, he looked over and saw me, tears streaming down my pale face, meowing kittens at my feet, and me trying to feed the kittens, ineffectively. I asked him what I could use, and he went into our medicine cabinet and brought out a syringe, which looked like a million dollars to me. The syringe worked somewhat well, even though half of the formula ended up on the kittens� face.
Searching around my house for something I could put them in, I found a cardboard box that would suit them for the night. I thought I would be able to feed them once and then drift off into a deep, slumbered sleep. Well, I was as wrong as bird poop on a car window. They woke me up every three hours, meowing pitifully for me to feed them. Feeding them would take ten minutes, and then I would fall asleep, only to be awakened by annoying sounds in what seemed like five minutes later. Drifting off to sleep at around 5 A.M., I finally got more than two hours of sleep in a row.
In the morning, I went to the Dakota Veterinary Clinic to buy some kitten formula; since I had researched that just feeding them milk will slowly kill them because they would not get all the nutrients that they needed. The formula was expensive, but I was willing to do anything for these kittens. I also bought a bottle, so that feeding these frisky kittens would not be too much of a problem.
Two days later, tragedy strikes. As I do every morning, I went to go feed the kittens. Peering down into the box, I saw Jo lying deathly still on top of the burgundy blanket. I started crying right away, thinking that all I did for them went to waste in one moment. Realizing that he was still breathing, I placed him into a plastic container and brought him to the vet. The vet diagnosed him with malnutrition, saying that he was not getting enough nutrition from his formula. They told me to feed him more often, and more each time if I could. Following their orders, Jo slowly became himself again, running around the room and bouncing off all the walls.
Finally, I got them to eat kitten food, after many failures of different mixtures. I tried bologna and kitten food, milk and kitten food, hot dogs and kitten food, but all they ate was everything but the kitten food. Mixing tuna and kitten food together, I hoped for the best, and that did the trick. They ate the kitten food and the tuna, and soon they graduated to eating just the kitten food.
Now they live in my room, literally. I love them so much, and they mean so much to me. If anything happened to them, it would be like me losing a child, because I feel like a mother to them. Since I was the person who saved their life, they are more easily attached to me than other people. Going through this experience made me realize how much work a child is, and has shown me that the troubling twosome can give you many responsibilities to fulfill. Sharing my sleep with them has shown me that this is love, no strings attached. When they are gone, the impact they made in my life will live on forever.