One warm Italian summer evening my husband, Jonas, and I were sitting in the living room reading with the windows wide open when we heard a small cry. We kept hearing it and finally realized it was a kitten and, from the sound of the cry, it had to be a very small kitten. The crying was heartbreaking. We went outside, but couldn't find where it was coming from. The kitten was obviously hiding from us in the dark.

The next day Jonas was outside hanging clothes on the line when he heard a very demanding meow. He looked up to see a little white kitten with azure-blue eyes sitting in the window of the old pig sty. It was the little kitten from the night before. He moved toward her, but she ran away. We put food out for her for a few days. The food was always gone within an hour. And yet, she still cried, and nearly broke our hearts. We tried a couple of times to catch her so we could bring her inside, but she just ran the minute we got close. It seemed that we wouldn't be able to do anything for her.

After feeding her outside for a couple of weeks, we had a breakthrough. We came home from the market early one afternoon and saw the kitten on the other side of the house near the old Cantina. I got out of the car and tried to sneak up on her. She raced away and into the Cantina. This was better because I could bring her food and work on getting her used to me. She couldn't hide so well in there.

So began the job of taming a feral kitten. We named her Cianna, which in Italian means "gift from God", or another translation, "God is gracious". It's pronounced "Kee-anna".

As I'd had to leave my beloved cat Downey behind in Canada when we moved to Europe, I was missing having a cat in the house. I've often wondered if being a writer means you have to be a cat lover. Both Jonas and I love having at least one cat around the house. We fell in love with the lost little kitten of the azure-blue eyes and wanted to make her part of the family. I had no idea just how difficult that would be.

I started with research on the Internet. Jonas also had some great advice about using her stomach against her. As a serious food lover, I think he instinctively understood this concept. Some great ideas come to me about how to get Jonas to do a few things … but I digress. Every morning I took soft cat food to Cianna and placed it just inside the door. I started with the food near where she slept, but each morning moved it closer and closer to where I sat in the doorway. She had to come near me in order to eat the tempting food. I left hard food for her during the night, but she was very tempted by the soft food.

At first, of course, she was cautious. It took a while for her to approach the food and she would eat with ears perked and watching me almost constantly. But she surprised me. It only took a few days for her to eat the food right beside my foot. Then I made her eat with my hand near the plate and on it went. Within a week she was letting me pet her. Another few days and I was picking her up. A week after that and we moved her inside.

Kiki as we now call her for short, has become an endearing part of our family. She is lively and playful, but also incredibly affectionate and sweet. She was very young when we found her. She had to be only six weeks or so, and probably because of this, she imprinted on me. She definitely thinks of me as her mommy. I've never had a kitten that liked to be picked up all the time, but Kiki does. She will meow at my feet until I scoop her up and she purrs and rubs on my face. Now who can resist a little sweetheart like that? She's definitely my little gift.

We've discovered that Cianna is an Applehead Siamese (which refers to the traditional shape of her head). I've never had a Siamese and have discovered through the Internet just what an amazing breed they are. Cianna is almost like a dog in her personality. She follows me everywhere, even to the toilet. She sleeps with us every night and spends her days beside me while I write, unless she's chasing and carrying her tiny mouse around. She's one of the best cats I've ever had.

I have to insert a comment here about the cat situation in Italy. It's almost another post in itself. Everywhere we go here, we see feral or just abandoned cats. We even saw a beautiful cat at a train station searching the faces of everyone going by and crying constantly. We figured the owner had abandoned him there when he got on the train and left for good. It's very sad. So, helping take care of at least one abandoned kitten was the least we could do.