"Her face looks like cookie dough," she said, holding her fingers out to the cat who had her own room in the shelter. "If she were mine, I'd name her Cookie Dough."

I'd already checked and found she was declawed. I was hopeful. The little angel hadn't gravitated toward any cat in three shelters and five hours since Bella passed away.  "This could be your cat," I said.

And so we adopted Petunia Cookie Dough, who came to live with us. She now sleeps at our feet in our bed, sits with us while we read books at night to the little angel, sprawls on the kitchen floor while we eat, never more than five feet away from the closest family member.

She is a lap cat. A lover. A sweetheart. And if we hadn't adopted her, she would be dead by now.

We adopted her from a kill shelter when she had been there for nine months. That was in July-ish. She would've been dead by now if we hadn't brought her home.

She is one of the sweetest cats I have ever known.

And sometimes, when I look at her late at night, I realize that she knows that we saved her.

She knows she is home.