Miracles do happen. The fact that Miracle is alive is proof of that. She shouldn't have lived. She was born way too early. But she did. She not only lived but when the vet saw her he said she was the healthiest orphan kitty he'd ever seen. ('Orphan' meaning that the mother was not able to provide milk.) Hershey probably shouldn't have lived after being hit on the highway. Her time was definitely short when we picked her up. With the heavy traffic, she would have been hit again soon. Then she survived giving birth to three kittens. The infection in her shoulder went down and she had her leg amputated. It healed well and she gets around very well. Occasionally she forgets and tries to slap the dogs with her absent leg and has to reverse positions to get them with the only front leg she has.

Hershey is never going to do algebra. She has problems seeing. For the first year, she hunkered down under our dining room table and stayed there except for meal time and to find me at 10 o'clock at night for some loving. But she has blossomed since and now rules the roost.

Eight weeks after Miracle was born, we weaned her off the milk supplement. She began to drink from a little pan and no longer needed the eye dropper. Then she began solid food. What a relief! And then Hershey's milk came in. A little after the fact. So for a week or two we had to keep mother and kitten separated.

Remember back to when we found Hershey? We couldn't keep her because my husband and I am allergic to cats. Remember that? Well, now we had two cats that were healthy and recovering well from their ordeal. But what were we going to do with them? We loved them. That's what it came down to. We'd poured a lot of time and energy into them. Not to mention money on Hershey's hospital stay and surgery. My daughter was in kitten heaven. Her prayers had been answered. But here's the other miracle that occurred. My husband and I aren't allergic to Miracle. Not at all. Weird. We're slightly allergic to Hershey and have to be careful when handling her not to rub our faces and to always wash our hands.

This little black/gray cat has a few idiosyncracies. For instance, she loves water. Not a bath, mind you. But water! When she hears the faucet turned on, she comes running. If she hears the shower, she comes running. She has learned to turn on the faucet in my bathtub. She loves to watch it drip. She also loves to find a forgotten glass and tip it over so she can watch the water run and drip off the table. She did accidentally jump into the toilet a couple of times. But it taught my kids to keep the lid down!

Where as our lab won't fetch, our Miracle will. She also pulls toys out into the hallway and cries for my daughter to come play with her. She has her particulars and my daughter is her favorite.

We keep that first picture of Miracle on our refrigerator to remind us that miracles do happen and God answers prayers.