Hershey is our brain-damaged, three-legged cat. The leader of our pack of animals. She is as sweet as can be. Very loving. She has come a long way from when we found her. Here's her story:

Hershey beckoned to us from the road. I was driving my children (only 3 and 4 at the time) to my folks for the weekend. About a mile from their ranch, I saw this chocolate-red furry lump in the roadway. I always hate the site of an animal that has been hit. But this one, looked up and looked right at me.

So we dropped my three dogs at my folks, got my mom who picked up her cat carrier and back we went to rescue this poor cat on the highway. It was Friday night about 5 o'clock. Even in the country, traffic can be heavy. We found her again, pulled to the side of the road and waited for an opportunity to run out and pick her up. Before we could, an eighteen wheeler rumbled past so fast we were sure the cat had been squashed. But she wasn't. Then there was a pause in the traffic flow, so we raced out to the middle of this two lane highway and scooped her up. She was reddish brown with white. Very pretty. She was so light, we thought she was still fairly young.

We took her to my mother's vet in a nearby town. He examined her. She had a severe concussion and one of her legs was useless from probably nerve damage. He agreed to keep her in the animal hospital and watch over her, test her for any diseases while we tried to find her a good home.

As much as I would have liked to keep her and give her to my little girl who had been wanting a cat for a long time, I couldn't. My husband is allergic to cats. So am I. We named the cat Hershey because she looked like Hershey chocolate so we could pray for her over the weekend.

So we tried for 5 days to get her a good family. The only home we found was a friend of my mother's who agreed to take her out to her farm where she had numerous cats and dogs. But by then, it was apparent that Hershey might lose her leg. That didn't seem like a good option for a three-legged cat.

On Tuesday morning, still not knowing what we were going to do with this cat, the vet called and said, "We have a kitten." "Yes," my mother said. "No, we have a kitten. She had a kitten. She's apparently pregnant. But the kitten is ten days early at least. Most kittens born five days early don't live."

Unfortunately, that kitten died. But we picked up Hershey that afternoon. The vet hoped she would hold onto the rest of her kittens before giving birth to anymore. He was wrong.

Monday, I'll tell you the rest of this story!