About a year ago in August 2001, we were in the midst of fostering a mama cat and her three kittens. She had cream fur and all her kittens were light colored as well. The woman we were fostering for gave us another kitten who had been thrown on the counter at a local pet store the day she was doing adoptions. He was just a tiny bundle of black fur and needed to nurse. We introduced him to the mama cat we had to see if she would accept him and add him to her litter. She did! We subsequently named the mama cat, "Grace". Since my daughter had just watched the "James Dean Story" on television, the little black kitten was christened "James Dean". And his survival/rebellion against his earlier treatment made him our newest "Little Rebel". James Dean grew and grew. (We think he was a Maine Coon) He had the hugest eyes, softest fur, and had quite the charming personality, too!We always thought he was going to be the biggest kitty of them all. Other foster kittens came and were adopted, but our family decided to adopt James as our own. Although James had a special place in all of our hearts, he was my daughter's fur baby. He lived mostly in her room. He sat mostly in her lap. He gave her those special nose kisses and would stroke her face with his little paw, so gently as not to ever scratch her. And he had the most magnificent purr. It would fill the room. We continued to foster other kittens and were assured our fur baby would be safe from contracting diseases. However, this turned out not to be true. In January of this year, we were asked to foster four cats who quickly came down with feline distemper (panleukopenia). Again we were assured our little guy was safe because he lived upstairs in our two story house, was vaccinated and the sick foster kittens were kept in a totally separate area. Since the disease is air born, and no matter how careful we were to change clothes, shoes, wash hands, etc., some germs still travel.And they traveled to him. Within a few days, James Dean started meowing a lot and didn't seem to be eating much or drinking. We took him to the vet right away and the vet took his blood. The vet, who had seen some very sick kittens before, thought James looked good and sent him home. We were still concerned, so we kept trying to feed him bits of food and water by hand that night. Our daughter was very sick herself at the time, and was sleeping a lot. That was probably the only way she was able to make it through that time was the fact she was not totally aware of what was happening. By the next day, though, James was throwing up constantly and getting weaker by the minute. We finally got a hold of the vet, but it was his day off and we couldn't get James' test results over the phone. So, we called another vet who then was able to get the results. James blood count was horribly low at 300 and that had been the day before.It was probably sheer will that James lived to that point. We think he wanted to be able to say good-bye to our daughter who was feeling well enough that day to get out of bed herself. James passed over to the Rainbow Bridge that evening and I stroked his beautiful fur to the end. His purr filled the room. James didn't live to be the biggest kitty of them all and he only lived five very short months. But, he had the biggest purr of any kitty we've ever known. We don't foster cats anymore. In the seven months that we did, we fostered over seventy. But it was a great sacrifice for my daughter, who was devastated. This being the height of kitten season, she is becoming aware that there are other kittens out there that may need to be rescued.In time, she may want to foster cats again. Or perhaps she will get involved in another capacity.I do know that our James Dean will live forever in her heart, our hearts.