"Mew." Cats don't fly. Why was that sound coming from my 2nd-story window?
When I stuck my head out the window and looked down, I saw a kitten who'd found another kitten--a newborn--and, mistaking it for a mouse, was playing with it, flinging it up in the air. At the top of the arc, the frightened kitty had let out a little scream--which I had heard.
"Hey, stop that!" I pulled on garden gloves and brought the poor thing into our apartment--in a shoebox my daughter had emptied then lined with a towel. My husband had rushed to the pet store for feeding supplies. The kitten was so small. The umbilical cord was still attached when we found it, and it was still a bit moist, but it was all fluffy in a few hours. Unfortunately, its back was broken, and there was little we could do; my husband had to bury it the next day.
My daughter, a cat lover, surprised me with her response. She held absolutely no anger towards the larger kitten who was probably responsible for hurting the newborn; knew it had acted out of ignorance. Instead, she loved it and got it to eat out of her hand and crawl on her shoulders. When we moved, my daughter's regret was that she'd have to part with her new kitty friend.
Years later, my husband and I went back to that old neighborhood, and we saw some cats. They ran away when we neared them--all but one. It was skinnier and scruffier, but yes, it was that specially loved kitty.
We human critters killed the Son of Man, Who prayed, "Father, forgive them; they don't know what they're doing." And the Father's response was to love us in a special way too.
