What is it about a cat?

This summer instead of taking a trip to Europe we added to our family with a feline adoption. It has been about a year since we had to take our beloved twenty-two pound black cat to the vet and have him put to sleep. Over the course of more than fifteen years he wedged his way into our hearts. He had always been fiercely independent and the direct opposite of a 'lap cat', but loyal without question. Our grieving over his loss took some time, but Loa and I looked at each other one day and knew it was time. We'd never be able to replace him but we needed another pet. So... we took a test on the Internet to see what kind of a dog would fit with our personalities. The answer was to get a cat. So the hunt began.
We scoured the ads in the paper, looked for kittens in front of the supermarket, visited animal shelters and the pet stores. Somehow we always returned from our search empty handed and with a growing hole in our hearts. One day Loa found an ad in the local advertising paper that clutters our mailbox on a weekly basis. A nearby family had five kittens. The mother cat was only a year old and it seemed the eight-week-old kittens where sucking the life from her. She needed a rest. Then we had to choose. Impossible. We brought two home. It took a couple of weeks until we found names that stuck. Tigger (thanks A. A. Milne) and Hal (short for Halloween).
Animals are so wonderful in their interaction with human beings. They give unquestioned affection and ask little in return. Well, Hal is pretty demanding about getting lots of affection. In a short time we've become more attached than I though possible. They have such different personalities, just like children in the same family. Tigger is already much larger, but at the vet we found Hal weighed one more ounce. Hal is also the aggressor with it comes to the kind of play that all kittens have with each other.
I realize this month's blog is not into much about our nature as human beings, but this experience has taught me again how wonderful God's creatures are and that even the smallest can create within us the powerful emotions of love and afection.