Asher.
Legacy Name: Asher.

In honor of my cat, Asher.

She was born in early April to a mother cat with no time on her paws. Another litter of eight had been born just nine weeks prior, just barely weaned and still needy for mother's attention whenever it could be had, and even though the yet-unnamed Asher and her brother were just two, ten makes a mother anxious. Just two weeks after this second lot, the mother to this spread of kittens was struck by a car. Their owner was left with eight rambunctious young cats and two mewling, helpless kittens.

Enter, me.

My mother and I, a friend of said overworked owner, agreed to take on the youngest siblings. My mother claimed the boy, a wild but beautiful ball of silky gray fur, and I took in his sister.

There's no way around it, Asher was a runt. Her tiny head was too big for her tinier body, and though her fur was soft, it was short and clung to her in some places and stuck out haphazardly in others. Her watery blue eyes bulged out on either side of a drunken streak of orangey-blonde fur atop her nose. The rest of her was mostly a dull brownish black in those days, with a few patches of stripe-y orange on her chest and back. She was not the prettiest kitten I'd ever seen, but she was the most beautiful.

Unlike her brother, who clawed eagerly at the bottle whenever it was time to feed them (which was staggeringly often), getting milk in his eyes and up his nose until his cute little head shook with sneezes, Asher nestled quietly in my arms and suckled gently, only stopping to look up at me with watery blue eyes.

I later learned that my mother had only agreed to let me take her as well because she was sure Asher was going to die. Looking back, that wasn't hard to believe. She never seemed to grow as fast as her brother, who filled out quickly into the fattest and most silky cat in this world. She was small - scrawny, even - though her head did eventually look proportional to the rest of her. Today, though, she's a sleek, if oddly spotted, panther, and I love her more than words can describe. The happiest moment of my life comes from her:

Early one morning, I was up before the sun to feed my fuzzy daughter her breakfast. I was stifling yawns, trying to keep her held up as well as myself, and starting to wonder why I'd agreed to something so crazy as motherhood to a cat at the age of fourteen. Then I felt it. Her little body was vibrating ever so softly, and for a moment I thought maybe she was dying after all. Then I realized she was purring. Purring for the first time ever and kneading my hands and blinking up at me with love in her tiny eyes. And suddenly it was all worth it.

I've written an AP exam essay on this cat. She's my shoulder to cry on, my furry little angel, and I don't know what I'd do without her.

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