You’d never drop a diamond into a dumpster. But recently, one tiny treasure ended up in the trash.

A tiny treasure…with a tail.

Residential service driver James Ryan started his day as usual, beginning his route at 4am. When James arrived at the transfer station, the loader operator asked him an unusual question: You like cats, right, James?

Well known among his coworkers as a cat-lover, James was just the man they’d hoped to see that day. Another driver had made a startling discovery hours earlier.

Amid the orange peels and cast-off containers in his truck, a skinny black-and-white kitten tumbled out.

Small enough to disappear into a driver’s glove, the kitten had scurried behind some shovels…and she was in serious trouble.

James dug through the tools to find the kitten. When he reached to pick her up, the kitten howled a cry of agony that James says “I never want to hear out of a kitten for the rest of my life. My heart was breaking.”

He soon saw the cause for the kitten’s distress: her right rear leg had been mangled in the dumpster.

The kitten and her hero made their way to Tabby’s Place, both crying with all their might. But tears would soon give way to sturdy joy.

After treating the wee wonder with pain medication, Dr. C. and Denise gently bathed the kitten. As you can see, it would take more than a few baths to restore this masterpiece to her original splendor. But, like a long-forgotten Michelangelo, the kitten would be worth every effort to tenderly pat away the grime.

At this point, though, dirt was the least of our dumpster darling’s concerns. First there was the pressing matter of that pressed-beyond-the-limit leg. Within hours, our little survivor was on her way to Dr. Fantastic at the world-class specialty hospital, where she’d have surgery to remove her mangled leg and begin her road to recovery.

As James dried his tears and realized the kitten would survive, he had just one request. Might he have the honor of naming the kitten? Absolutely, we said. What would you like to call her?

James smiled and gave his daughter’s middle name: Grace.

Consider all of this the next time you find yourself in some sort of dumpster. It may be ugly and ooky and altogether hellacious for a time…but grace prevails over suffering and stink.

I promise.

Coda of infinite perfection: James and his family are fostering Grace as she recovers. It’s grace all the way there and back again for everyone involved.

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