I have always known I was the stereotypical “crazy cat lady.”  It is a label I have accepted in part with embarrassment and in part with pride.  Why is it the compassionate ones are always labeled crazy and animal killers are considered normal?  I do not mean to sound harsh but I believe it is the absolute truth.  Obviously I cannot pass through pet stores and visiting shelters make me so despondent I have no words.  I suppose I am just not strong enough.  Anyway, I was minding my own business one day when these two popped up on my Facebook feed.  It was a last ditch rescue plea from a local shelter and I could have cheerfully strangled the friend who posted it.  They just haunted me.  First, if you are not a cat person and did not know this most orange cats are male.  I believe they used to be even more rare but current statistics place them at 80% male and 20% female.  Calico cats (three colors:  black, orange and white) are almost always female and tortoiseshell cats are as well.  (They have two colors; black and orange.)  So this little rare pair were both girls.  I confess I went for the kitten (a dilute calico) but her cries as she was taken from her mother will haunt me the rest of my days.  It was AWFUL.  Equally so was seeing her near starving mother reaching her paw out of the cage to her kitten.  Their cries echoed down and through the corridor and looking at the mother I KNEW she knew he was going to be killed.  In that instant I uncharacteristically ordered the mean, immune officer who had callously grabbed the kitten by the nape of the neck to put her back immediately with her mother where she belonged.  And then I announced I would be taking them both.  This haughty proclamation was followed by a texted plea to my husband not to divorce me.  His response was, “You got them both, didn’t you?”  And then I knew he was the kindest, sweetest man in the whole world; possibly the only one who truly understood and accepted me.  When we met I had seven cats.  Yep; seven.  And he loved them all.  Judge me; make fun of me; but they were my family.  I needed them just as much as they needed me.  And I do not regret one single rescue.  Returning to my story, I was not prepared to take two cats and one kind officer went and emptied out a box of printer paper so I could get them home.  I remember feeling ill carrying them, as the mother weighed less than four pounds and her kitten who even knows.  Something happened when I took the mother.  She knew I was keeping them together and she just seemed to let go.  I was afraid she would die because she had not been eating in the shelter.  I am sure it was because she could smell the death.  After leaving them to our bathroom upstairs with food and water something miraculous happened.  She started eating and gained enough weight to nurse!!!  Soon her little kitten’s tummy was full of Mama’s milk and they would lay together purring contentedly.  I began a sort of perverse reverse mental count of how many days they would have been gone contrasted with how well they were doing at the present.  And so I named the Mama cat Soleil which in French means “sun” and Giverny is where Monet lived when he painted his famous waterlilies.  Both kitties are rare in that you also do not see many dilute calicos.  Notice she is more gray and pink and white as opposed to black, orange and white.  Her muddled tones reminded me of Monet’s pond, which we had just visited.  They needed antibiotics and eye drops but flourished.  Giverny still remains tiny and our little one’s eternal “kitten.”  So if/when someone crinkles their nose when they discover our cats I remember the sound of them crying for each other that will haunt me as long as I live.  I will wear the crazy label; at least I know they were saved and are a loved, cherished part of our little family.  The renowned French-German academic Albert Schweitzer once said, “There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life:  music and cats.”  Both have been a refuge for me as I have struggled with the loss of both of my parents.  So really I do not believe, in my arrogance, I “saved” these cats.  I believe they saved me.