Last Friday was a rainy, humid day. My husband Dean and my Nash-bestie Patti are doing a challenge together where they do a certain number of workouts in addition to other things. We had initially planned for some volleyball practice as their evening workout, but as the day was exceptionally muddy and looking likely to dump more rain at any moment, we opted to grab umbrellas and head out for a long walk instead.

We almost didn’t go. Patti said that her weather app said it was about to rain and that she might just do Pilates when she got home. I said that my app said we had 59 minutes. So we went.

I had to grab one right after we caught him! At the time I didn’t realize he was going to become part of Patti’s family.

Dean decided to take the lead and take us down his normal walking path. This isn’t the way I normally go, and I made a few comments about how it was rather unsafe because the road was very curvy, on a hill, and had no sidewalk. But we kept going.

Near one particularly treacherous piece of shoulder, close to a guardrail, I heard something over our companionable chatter. “Is that a kitten?” I asked, interrupting whoever had been talking. We all stopped. The wailing continued. Could have been a bird. We crossed the road to check it out. The sound got louder.

Patti saw him first. A little smear of black and white fur came stumbling out of the brush toward us, wailing his heart out. Patti scooped him up, pulled a fly and some leaves off of him and tucked him against her chest. He was soaked through and shivering and kept up his continual cries.

We unanimously agreed: walk canceled, back to house with kitten.

When we grabbed him, my first thought was to get him to a vet and get him checked out and then see what shelters might take him. Mentally, I figured we could probably keep him for the night and keep him safe and away from our boys, perhaps in the bathroom, until the morning. As we began our trek back up the hill, Patti began picking out names and asked me to send a picture to her girlfriend of their new cat. I was thrilled.

Fortunately, when we get deliveries, we leave the empty boxes scattered around the home for a time so that our cats can play with them. This resulted in a box of the perfect size for us to place a towel and a kitten in for the purposes of cleaning him off and getting him dry. He began purring the instant we put him in the box and purred the entire time we rubbed him down. Dean ran out to get food for him.

At one point, Patti looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, I’ve been talking like I’m taking this kitten. Did you want him?” I said no, he was meant to be her kitten and Aang and Cloud were enough for me to handle right now. I began getting their travel litter box and bowls together as well as an extra bag of cat litter for her to use until she moved to Chicago with Rachel at the end of the month.

Newly christened Pippin was brave and affectionate once we got him dried off. He was curious about Aang and Cloud (they were terrified of him) and was happy to take a nap on any one of us that would hold him.

I held him on the way home so that Patti could safely drive, Dean followed us in our car. We helped get him settled—including a micro introduction to BIG sister Patch, which involved hissing and spitting—in the spare room before we headed back home.

I have received daily Pippin updates at my persistent request. He is 1.7 pounds, received a flea bath, was newly enamored with Patch, who was slightly afraid of him (in spite of being 80 pounds herself), was a talky boy, and has received many new toys. I have watched several videos of him prancing around, his little black tail a jaunty flagpole, celebrating his micro triumphs. I’m so excited to be able to watch the life he’s gained.

Dean went for a walk along the same path the next day and kept an ear out, but didn’t hear any more kittens. We didn’t see or hear any others the day we found Pippin either. The fact that he ran up to us and was so happy and friendly once we got him inside makes me think that he was dumped there, or somewhere nearby.

I’ve never been able to wrap my head around how people are able to do this to animals.

When I was a kid, my mom was dropping my sister and I off to elementary school. There was a line at the stop sign before the school and we watched as a grinning woman got out of her car with a fluffy white kitten, placed him gently in the ditch by the side of the road, jumped back in her car and took off. The kitten looked so confused and we were all shocked and appalled. My mom circled back after she dropped us off, but the kitten was gone. We hope that someone else picked it up, but the memory of that kitten’s innocent, confused face is burned into my brain forever. The fact that the woman was smiling when she dumped him is unfathomable.

I’m thankful that the universe conspired to put us in the right place at the right time to intercept Pippin. It fills my heart to know that he is in a safe and loving home for the rest of his days. If you read my blog, I post about cats enough to discourage anyone that doesn’t love animals, so I’m sure this is preaching to the choir, but I do want to take a moment to express how easy it is to be kind. Just because a life is small and not necessarily human doesn’t mean it’s disposable.

Saving Pippin