The Inevitable.

After my sister Ann lost her two cats Murray and Madison, she was inconsolable. So we encouraged her to go out and get a kitten...in a hurry. She came home later that day with 2 kittens, Lennard and Nelson. They are brothers, and they are both orange tabbies.

If Lennard was a human, he would be Prince Harry. He has the same sort of sweet, freckly face with the wild, mangy hair. Nelson has a bobbed-tail and his posture is slanted, meaning his rear end sits higher up in the air than his shoulders. When he runs, his hind legs sort of hop together. It's really, really cute.

Ann had the boys for about 2 years before she passed away. For the last 4 weeks, they've been living alone in the condo, only seeing my other sister Denise every other day for fresh food and water and about an hour of cuddles.

My husband and I knew that we would have to take them. Denise already has 2 cats of her own that are semi-terrorized by a screaming/chasing 3 year old toddler named Pierce. I knew that she wouldn't be able to adopt them. And because Ann loved those cats with all of her heart, I also knew that there was no way we could ever give them away - no matter how good the home.

It really came down to this: My husband and I have always felt that my sisters should take our cats if anything ever happened to us. So we feel duty-bound to do that which we expected. Plus, it's a final way to honor my sister.

The addition of Lennard and Nelson means that we will have a total of 6 cats. In my little, three bedroom, 1.5 bath home. We have cleared the additional space in the garage that we'll need to house a total of six cat boxes. Not to mention the two, 20lb bags of kitty food. And the four boxes of kitty litter.

We haven't told any of our neighbors about this. We hope to sneak the cats into the house at night...to avoid the confession that yes, we adopted two more.

In essence, it's a rescue mission...and an act of love.