Meet “Kiki”.  Kiki is a bit of a wonder cat - not because she has any special talents or unusual traits. Kiki is a wonder cat because she somehow managed to make a 56 year old, single, dog loving man fall in love with her.

Months ago, when she happened upon my father’s front door she was skinny, a bit shy, and pregnant. She came to visit everyday and soon enough he found himself leaving cat food out for her. He named her after the “here kitty kee kee” call he would make that would send her running his way.

Eventually she had her kittens and I called him one day to learn that he had brought her and her 5 little ones inside his house for protection. “I sure hope she knows how to use a litterbox” he said to me.

Was this the same man who kept his allegiances towards large breed dogs his entire life?  The same man who insisted we had to find new homes for my cats in high school because they were making his asthma worse?

On my visit home last week, I encountered a petite little black cat who now carries a fat little well-fed belly. Dad found homes for all of her kittens, had her spayed, and she wears a red collar with a little bell.  He told me stories about things she does when they hang out around the house together and that she even sleeps on the foot of his bed at night.

I can’t even hide my smile when I see him holding her. A tiny female stray cat is the last animal I would have assumed my father, who lives alone in a small little place off a country road, would have chosen as a pet.

But I think that’s why it works. He didn’t choose her… she chose him, and there is something in all of us that appreciates the feeling of being needed.

M