In this very sensitive-to-spaying-and-neutering world and in view of all the unwanted dogs and cats in the world, I must beg your forgiveness - I let my cat get pregnant. She wasn't supposed to be in heat, but I shouldn't have let her out. But I did and she is.

But, oh, the sweetness of it all. It is an indulgence that I have let myself experience. In my life of so many losses, I have allowed my cat to grow new lives inside her belly. I have allowed myself to put my hands on her stomach and feel the growing life inside and then as the weeks passed to feel those lives move and kick. One, two, three ... I think I count four.

I have allowed myself to leave work early a few days ago because I sensed that her time was near, and was glad to know I was right as I lifted the tiny lives from my bed (yes, my bed) and the floor and moved them to the box I had carefully prepared for this event. And I gave in to the luxury of the celebration of life and called my best friend to say, "they're here -- they've been born."

And I was delighted when she, too, left her job and rushed to see the new lives that had come to live on Kenneth Avenue with my children and a dog named Brittney, a now mother cat and some sea monkeys.

I sterilized the knife and cut their cords and their birth sacks and helped mama cat adjust as this was a new world for her too, and I smiled as her instincts took over and she cleaned and nursed and settled into her new role as a mother.

They sleep by my bed in their box with a heating pad underneath to keep them extra warm, and I hear the mother gently coo and encourage her new babies to eat and cuddle and finally sleep. I hear her purr. I hear the tiniest of mews coming from the so-very-small mouths of the six new lives that have come into our world.

I promise mama cat and I promise myself to find each a wonderful home. I promise my children that we will keep two boys for ourselves. I promise the world and Pet & Adoption Services (P.A.W.S.) of Rutherford County to spay my cat and to neuter the two males that I keep.

But for now, as these tiny lives are just beginning to open their eyes, and as they still only know the soft warm fur of their mother and the slow, steady rhythmic beating of her heart, I will bask in it all. I will pour myself into the care and love of these kittens and remember what is good and whole about life on planet Earth.

For now.