The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.
~Wilson Mizner

“Wallet stolen — contained passport and credit cards.” At the little police station hidden in a corner of the Stazione Termini, the main train station in Rome, I filled out the necessary forms while trying to hold back tears of anger, frustration, and humiliation. Oh, yes, we’d been warned. First by Rita, our Italian language instructor back in Indianapolis, and then over and over since we had arrived in Italy ten days earlier. Watch out for pickpockets! Guard your purse. And I had been careful. But they found me, a seasoned traveler, anyway, waiting for a train to the airport.

I felt so foolish. How could I have been so careless? The hotel welcomed us back, but it took several hours to cancel credit cards, notify our cat-sitter, and cover our two-day delay at our jobs. My husband, Jimmy, tried to console me with a reminder that since we were traveling standby with Delta Airlines Buddy Passes, we could board any flight with empty seats, but I just felt stupid, stupid, stupid! Later, even one of those long, delicious Italian dinners didn’t alleviate my feelings of incompetency and humiliation.

The next morning we dressed in our traveling outfits and headed for the American Embassy to get my temporary passport, intending to make a mad dash for the airport if we finished in time.

“Tell me something about Indiana that is unique,” the young woman behind the counter said, looking up from my application. “I have to ask since you don’t have a birth certificate with you.”

Unique? My home state? “The Indianapolis 500?” I stammered.

She frowned. “Like a state park, anything like that? A famous mountain or beach?”

“I think the state bird is a cardinal. Or maybe not,” I said, my mind a blank.

She must have decided an identity thief would have been better prepared, because ten minutes later we walked out with my new passport.

“Let’s stay,” Jimmy said as we waited to cross a busy street. “No one expects us home today.”

“Really? Can we do that?” Suddenly I felt like a kid playing hooky. My depression began to lift.

It was a lovely day. We wandered all over the city, looking at sights we’d thought we would have to miss. Every so often, though, I had flashes of the embarrassment I was going to feel when I explained my carelessness to friends back home.

Our feet finally started hurting as we crossed a bridge near the block of ancient ruins where Julius Caesar was supposedly done in by Brutus. We headed toward a nearby bench. Several times during our stay we’d rushed past the ruins and even had remarked on the number of cats sunning themselves amid the broken columns fifteen feet or so below the level of the sidewalk. However, we’d never noticed the large hand-printed poster with a red arrow pointing down a flight of stairs near the end of the bridge. “Cat Sanctuary, Visitors Welcome.” We couldn’t resist.

At the bottom of the stairs was a small garden in front of an arched doorway that seemed to be built into the bridge abutment. Half a dozen cats were sunning themselves in the garden. It smelled like cat food. Okay, it smelled like cat urine, too, but not overwhelmingly. We obeyed the written invitation on the door and entered a large room lined with cages, all with open doors. From the information placards propped up on a long table, we learned the sanctuary serves over 600 cats, some feral, some abandoned. Once the cats are neutered and get shots and identification ear tags, they are free to roam, coming back to the room of cages for shelter and food. We bought a colorful picture book for our cat-sitter about a real-life, one-eyed cat that lived there. The woman who took our Euros told us to get Deborah to sign it and called over the writer, a slight woman with long, tousled hair and an energy force that was almost visible.

Deborah is American, intense, irreverent, and altogether delightful. She came to Rome for a visit sixteen years ago and never left. Helped start the sanctuary. She’s passionate about taking care of the cats. The previous year they got 1,000 cats, adopted out 300.

The shelter survives on donations. It is occasionally threatened with closure by the city government because it doesn’t have any legal right to be there. So far Deborah and her cohorts have won each skirmish by e-mailing to their list of donors around the world, which produces an enormous letter-writing campaign to the mayor and the threat of negative PR for the city.

Deborah spotted Jimmy’s camera. “We’re about to start a campaign,” she said, “to show how we don’t just help cats. There are many old people in Rome who spend way too much of their pensions on feeding homeless cats. Some give up food for themselves to do this. The sanctuary helps over fifty of them, giving them food or taking the cats in.” She nodded at the camera. “We need photos for the posters.”

An old woman, stooped over with osteoporosis, had entered the room. “Here’s our model,” Deborah said. “Carla has sixteen cats, lives in an apartment with no heat, and survives on her pension. She comes here for cat food and spends most cold days here helping with the animals and staying warm.”

Deborah picked up two bowls of cat food and led us into the ruins. She set the bowls down and positioned Carla nearby as cats jostled each other for the food. The old woman leaned back to minimize her stoop and smiled into the camera. She was heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Jimmy and Deborah worked for over half an hour, snapping shots and then viewing them until they were satisfied. As I watched, it occurred to me: this was why we needed to stay in Rome.

“Of course it is,” Deborah said when I told her. “I’ve had my passport stolen three times and there’s always a reason. Can you e-mail the pictures as soon as you get home?” We parted with hugs.

I smiled all the way back to our hotel, all through dinner, and was still smiling the next day as we boarded the plane. Several years later, I still smile when I think about Deborah and her cat sanctuary. She e-mailed to let us know her campaign was a success, bringing in enough to assure the sanctuary another year of compassionate care.

Sure, I know the campaign could have happened without us, but we were there at just the right moment, and for two cat lovers from the U.S., it was a blessing to be part of something so splendid and noble, so universal. Now when I’m asked to name the best thing that happened to me in Italy, I always say, “Well, it started with getting my pocket picked.”

— Sheila Sowder —