The summer I finished college, I found an injured mama cat on my friend’s farm. She was a black cat with bright green eyes, hiding in the barn, having just delivered kittens.

The little cat family had been attacked by animals, and the mama had been grievously injured trying to save her kittens. She managed to save three and did not complain when I scooped her up with them. She curled trustingly into my arms.

Something in me called out to try to save her. My boyfriend at the time agreed. I was grateful to him then, and now, for helping me to care for her. We put them all in a cardboard box and took them to the emergency vet.

“She isn’t your responsibility,” my friend’s mom told me before I drove away. “And this is going to be really expensive.”

Indeed, it was. The mama cat had a spinal-cord injury and was unlikely to live long. But the vet thought a steroid injection to her spine might buy her more time.

“It’s experimental, but every day she survives gives the kittens a better chance,” the vet told me.

We decided to try to save the kittens and give the mom a good home for as long as she lived. We named her Laney after the friend who was with us when we found her. We took shifts caring for her and hoping for the best.

From the day we found her, I felt a love for Laney that was wholehearted and irrationally hopeful. Against all odds, she survived, and so did her kittens.

Laney lost her tail and her sense of balance to her injuries, recovering to be a slightly off-balance kitty with a nubbin of a tail. I spent the next year paying off her vet bills.

Friends and family adopted her kittens, but Laney was ours. She became my lap cat and constant companion. She was always right next to me, chirping and purring, a comforting presence. At night she slept curled around my head or tucked into the curve of my knees.

As our family grew over the years to include children and more cats and a dog, Laney accepted and loved them all. She liked to ride around the house on our shoulders, like a pirate’s parrot. She adored our hound dog, often napping on his bed with him.

When we moved from North Carolina to Oregon, Laney rode along in her carrier in the backseat, yowling plaintively. She settled quickly into our new life in an urban apartment, watching the city below from our windowsill. As long as she was with us, Laney was at home.

Not too long after that move, I started to realize something was very wrong within my body. At 35 years old I was losing my sense of balance, along with my stamina and my hearing. Laney and I wobbled along together while I underwent tests. I was diagnosed with a tumor that was compressing my brain stem. I needed major brain surgery.

Surgery was an ordeal, followed by a stay in critical care, then a step-down unit. There were discussions of in­-patient rehabilitation. I pleaded to go home. I missed my bed and the quiet of my apartment. Most of all I missed Laney, who always curled into my arms when I was sick. I knew I would feel better if I could make it home to curl up with her.

My care team and family agreed. When I arrived home in a wheelchair, my parents and spouse provided my physical care with a grace that took my breath away. Through it all, Laney was my spiritual support, eight pounds of comfort and love.

It took us a little while to realize she was sick, too. She held on fiercely, watching over me through my recovery. But once I began walking again, she slipped away fast. On her last day, I held her in my arms and cried.

The vet told me, “She has seen you through so much. And you have given her such a good life.”

Laney enriched my life, too. If her life had a purpose, it was to love her little family, animal and human alike. I think my purpose is similar: to love the lives entrusted to me or entwined with mine.

In Sunday school growing up, I was taught from Genesis that humans, created in God’s image, were given dominion over creation. Later I learned of the “gospel of all creatures,” through which the world around us reveals God’s character. This makes more sense to me, for there are lessons of grace all around us.

When I reflect on the lessons of my friendship with Laney, I think dominion isn’t a useful frame for our relationship to animals. A care ethic that embodies the love of the Creator is the better way to view our relationship to our fellow creatures. This Earth is their home just as it is ours, and they too are a part of creation. Our calling is to care for and about creation, to love it and to learn from it.

Laney taught me love can kindle a hope that overcomes despair. She never had to earn my love or affection. I don’t know where that love came from. I only know it arrived, and it cracked my heart wide open.

I imagine that is how we, and all of creation, are loved by God: with a constancy and a wild hope and a faithfulness that does not end.

Laney changed me in her living and her dying. Love and grief expand us, opening our hearts through these shared experiences that connect us all. Laney taught me about both, and I am grateful for her lessons and for the many gifts of her little life.

Caroline Harkins McCarty is a member of Portland Mennonite Church in Oregon.