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| Name: |
Lester
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Age: |
Three months old
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| Gender: |
Male
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Kind: |
Cat
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| Home: |
Coffeeville, Mississippi
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This is the story of Lester, a rescue kitten that I found at 6:45 pm on May 24, 2016. I was driving home and when I was a block away at a four-way-stop I saw this little kitten in the front yard of an old, abandoned house. He seemed to radiate, and I remember thinking how he stood out like a neon sign, as if it were all pre-ordained for me to find him.
One of his eyes was partially matted, and the other was completely matted shut. He was literally meandering half-blind toward the busy street about 30 feet away. To make it worse, a big dog was standing beside him, trying to figure out what he was.
Without hesitation, I pulled over, got out, and walked up to the kitten. The dog ran off, and I picked up the kitten and put him in the car. From the time I first noticed him until he was in the car couldn't have been more than 30 seconds. I noticed how bad his eye looked, and I was concerned that maybe it had been gouged out, or that he might be blind in one eye. I got him home and cleaned his eyes and face, and realized that his eyes were unharmed and that he could see just as well as any other kitten.
Lester only weighed 14 ounces when I rescued him. He was malnourished, and I'm sure the mushy kitten food I gave him was the first solid food he ever had. He was also covered in fleas, so my vets had to find a special treatment for a kitten that small. They did, and it worked safely. Despite his initial neglected condition, he was still a little dynamo, full of energy, intelligence, and personality.
He bonded to me instantly as if he knew what danger he had been in, that I had rescued him from it and brought him to a place that would be his new home. He literally went from being homeless, hungry, caught between two life-threatening dangers, and needing basic medical attention to having his own home and all of those needs met in a matter of minutes. I told friends that it was if the spirit world had told him they were sending someone to rescue him and to be his caretaker, and that he recognized me instantly as if he had been waiting for me.
Lester stayed right with me all that evening, so I let him sleep in the bed the first night. The next day he would literally run to me every time he heard my voice. My room became his room, and he followed me around like a little puppy everywhere I went in the house. He napped contentedly on the bed during the hours of the day I was gone, and would then wake instantly and come charging off the bed when he heard my voice and the door opening when I returned. Every day he did something unique to remind me just how special that he and this whole scenario was. Realizing what an exceptional kitten that fate had put me with, I had to have a special name for him. The first and only name that came to me instantly was “Lester,” the name of the house where he was found. It's an old, abandoned ante-bellum home-place called the Lester House, named after a famous lawyer and early community leader of our town.
Now, it's three months later and everyone has fallen in love with Lester. It's partly because of his story, and partly because of his fabulous personality and how adorable he is. He has a lot of human DNA and all the right magic. He has people friends, kitten friends, and has been quite a hit on Facebook. Today, Lester's eyes are fine, his fleas are gone, he has one more shot to complete his vaccination schedule, and he weighs almost five pounds. He's got a special name, a comfortable home, a good vet, all the kitten food, chicken and tuna fish he can eat, great human and feline friends, a best-buddy caretaker, and a forever home. I pray for Lester every night and remind him that he's a blessing from the Lord and a miracle of the universe. It's hard to say which one of us has been blessed the most by this unusual rescue. It's probably equal, on a high level.
Lester has to have come from a feral cat background, and I have still not seen a momma cat or kittens around that house lot, so I will probably never know exactly where Lester came from, and how he got there. Obviously, he had never had any meaningful human contact, which makes it even more amazing how naturally inclined he was from the beginning to bond so quickly with a human. We all adore him.
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