My husband, Charlie, and I finally gave in to the whinings and pleadings of our son, Craigory. He'd been begging for a few months to adopt a kitty-cat. One of his very own. A friend for him, a companion for an only child. Okay, okay. We caved.

The three of us went to our local humane society, in hopes of finding the perfect feline companion for our rambunctious son. Personally, I wanted a kitten, but Charlie thought Craigory needed something "sturdier".

Nothing at the humane society really piqued our interest. You know what I'm talking about -- there was no instant "chemistry" between the humans and the felines. So we headed to the Cat Welfare Society, which takes in innumerable strays and finds homes for all of them. They have a no-kill policy (if I remember correctly), so they were literally overrun with cats.

We walked in the door to the modest building, and there were cats everywhere! There were active cats, eating, drinking, and chasing each other. Some had broken tails, chewed ears, and/or limps to their strides.

And they all had varying degrees of attitudes!

Now here were cats with personality! They all looked up expectantly as we entered the building, fixing the three of us with intense stares. A few cats had been loitering near the front door, just waiting for their next "victims". We fell into their charming trap, feet first. We couldn't stroke and pet fast enough.

Craigory was beside himself. He squealed and clapped his hands, sending a few skittish kitties running full-tilt to the back of the room to hide. Others came up to him, tails held high, inquisitively sniffing his outstretched hands. He was in heaven.

He wanted to take ALL of them home, naturally. We had to refrain, of course. Our small house and smaller wages couldn't handle it. Charlie gently told Craigory that we'd look around and pet the rest of the kitties before we chose one to take home.

Well, Charlie is (was) by no means a cat-person. He'd been raised with nothing but dogs, and frankly, didn't think much of cats. He only gruffly agreed to adopting a cat because, after all, it was two against one in our house. He didn't stand a chance with two cat-lovers. He was just politely going through the motions to make his wife and son happy. Or so he thought.

That's when she came up to him.

I saw her out of the corner of my eye. She was watching Charlie cross the room, moving away from her. She stepped out of the bed she was curled in, hopping to the floor with such grace that I did a double-take when I realized she had only one back leg.

She had eyes only for my husband. She ignored Craigory walking up to her, palm out and calling to her. Charlie was still walking in the opposite direction, unaware of this cat coming up on him.

Charlie paused to pet a cat in a cage, and the three-legged cat turned on the charm. She purred so loudly I could hear her a few paces away. She threaded her way through my husband's legs, making figure-eights until I thought she would pass-out from dizziness.

Charlie was stunned. This was the only cat in the whole building to come up to him. He was taken aback. He reached down after a minute and stroked the cat, who arched her back to his touch and looked at him with her gorgeous green eyes.

That's all it took. We had been adopted by this pretty kitty.

We learned that she "had been in a car wreck", as we jokingly told our friends and relatives who inquired about her condition. She had been run over in the city, and a good Samaritan had brought her to the Welfare, where the vet had been unable to save her leg.

The volunteers couldn't get over the rapport the cat had with Charlie. They said that she had never "made-up" to anyone in the two years that she'd been at the Welfare. They said it was destiny that Charlie and the cat were united -- that Charlie was sent from heaven to befriend and care for this lonely cat. One even commented wryly about the cat being "Charlie's Angel".

She was certainly Charlie's cat -- from the first day we brought her home, she slept on his side of the bed. She kept watch, and when Charlie would roll to sleep on his side, Lucky perched on his hip and purred, curling her front paws beneath her and her long tail around to the tip of her nose.

She never let her "disability" get to her. We have high windows in our house, and that didn't stop her from running and jumping onto the windowsills to watch the birds in our backyard.

A friend wanted to call her "Tripod" but we thought that was too cruel. We decided to call her "Lucky" because we humans were indeed lucky to share life with the sweetest, most loving cat I've ever been adopted by.

It's been ten years since our beginning, and I've been Lucky enough to spend half of that time with Charlie and his Angel. The last half has sadly been without his angel here on earth, but I'm sure Lucky is watching over him from her heavenly windowsill.

Copyright © Wendy Jenkins