For the last 2o years, I have fostered cats and kittens for local animal shelters and rescue groups. We have a half-bath/laundry room in our house, and I’ve come to look at it as a room that saves lives if I use it well. Sure, it would be more convenient to do laundry if it was feline-free. But if I say yes when there’s a desperate family of kitties who have nowhere else to go, it’s an easy fix to the part of my brain that demands I do good in the world. It’s always an adventure.

One December, I took on three sick kittens who required lots of extra care. One of them didn’t make it but the others did, and went on to live great lives. Next, it was a litter of four newborns with no mom, requiring from me all of the feeding and cleaning chores a mother cat would have performed. (Mamma cats don’t get the respect they deserve.) One of those didn’t make it but the others came through well-adjusted and healthy.

Another visitor was Lulu, a one-day-old kitten whose mother was hit by a car. Hoping to find a new mom for her, I brought in Latte, a cat who had just finished raising her babies. Latte kept Lulu company and cleaned her but I had to bottle-feed the baby. The next stint included a mom and three babies she took good care of. That’s one of the kittens, “Caraway”, in the picture. The story started before these chapters, and is not finished still.

Our bathroom is a micro-world, an underground railroad, an orphanage, a happy place sometimes, a heartbreaking place sometimes. Hundreds of felines have passed through that bathroom door to land in homes (ALL spayed and neutered). Many wouldn’t have otherwise made it, or would have had a difficult life without the extra help. It’s not that hard to do, and it’s not a long commitment each time I say yes.

I know there are cat lovers who are reading this. Have an extra room? Find a local shelter and offer to foster. It’s the easiest way I can think of to save a life.