“They are one of the best things that has ever happened to me” ❤️

One morning, Paris Zarcilla’s life took an unexpected turn.

He was stepping into his room to grab a sweater when he spotted someone nestled under his bed — a black and white cat whom he’d never seen before. Then he noticed she was not alone.

Zarcilla hadn’t been planning on being a cat dad, but in that moment something changed.

Though Zarcilla could have rounded up that little family of trespassers and dropped them at a shelter, he didn’t. Instead, Zarcilla fell in love.

“Paternal instincts kicking in. Overwhelmed with feels,” Zarcilla wrote at the time. “Don’t know how to deal.”

Zarcilla wasn’t sure where the mother cat had come from, but one thing was clear — she picked the perfect place to have her babies. Zarcilla embraced his new role.

“I’m a dad now,” he wrote.

At the time, word of Zarcilla’s heartwarming reaction to the cats took Twitter by storm. But as the internet spotlight inevitably faded, Zarcilla’s love and commitment to the cats never waned.

That was how it started. Here’s how it’s going:

It’s been about three years now since the mother cat appeared under Zarcilla’s bed and had her babies — and things have never been better.

That random moment has led to a lifetime of love.

The kittens have since grown up, alongside their mother and Zarcilla, as one happy family.

“Almost three years have gone by and it actually hurts to think about a life without them,” Zarcilla told The Dodo. “Truly, they’ve taught me how to be a better human being more than some of the humans I know. And I’m still learning some of the greatest life lessons from being around them.”

Zarcilla may not have been planning to be a cat dad — but now he couldn’t imagine things any other way.

“As soon as I decided I was going to keep them I knew my life would be different forever. Animal companionship is as good as they say,” Zarcilla said. “They are one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I grow as they grow. Stronger. Furrier. Meowier.”