Unusual relationship; The story of JJ

Last July I was faced with the devastating decision of having to put my 8yr old rednose,Coco, to sleep. She had a ruptured disc and it basically paralyzed her. I couldn't afford the surgery (@$6,000.00) and the vet said their was no guarantee it would work and then she would have to learn to walk again. Needless to say, I was inconsolable. I had just lost my baby. We still have her mate, Ghost, who at the time was 7 yrs old. We were extremely worried about him, because my vet told me when we had first gotten him as a rescue, that they would mate for life. He started out as just confused, constantly going to the door and whining, looking for her. Then he seemed at times to enjoy the extra attention, because now he only shared the house with one grumpy 10 yr old cat. Surprisingly, the cat got depressed, too, and would rub all over Ghost. Ghost started showing signs of being depressed, but then he would just love all the attention he was getting. My boyfriend and I decided that even if we weren't ready, we needed to start looking for a mate for him. So I started looking at the websites of the local shelters and we had found some females to choose from, when that night at work, I had a customer tell me there was a wild kitten in the parking lot and she wondered what we did in that situation. I told her it happened a lot and usually if we baited them with some food, animal control could catch them. So, I bought a can of cat food off the shelf and went outside. The kitten was hiding under a broken-down car, so I figured I would just put the food down. I didn' get the chance. She must have been starving, because she ran right to me and started scarfing that food down. Okay, I'm a sucker for animals... Anyone who knows me would tell you that. I didn't think twice, I just scooped her up and she never stopped eating as we walked back inside. My co-worker just grinned. I called my boyfriend, because it was @ 11:00PM and animal control is not going to come get it. He said, okay, trial basis. When Ghost first saw her, I honestly don't think he knew what it was. All of our cats had been adults when he was a baby. We let them see each other from a distance and this feather of a kitten @ 8 wks old and all ribs, spit and hissed at him, completely fearless. Ghost started a low growl and my boyfriend reprimanded him. Ghost launched at the kitten. I quickly spun around. Neither of us expected it, because Ghost is about the most mellow dog you've ever met. He loves everybody. So I told my boyfriend, I'll take her to the pound in the morning. In the morning, as I get her in the crate and get ready to leave, my boyfriend asks me what I'm doing. What do you mean what am I doing? Big softie that he is he says, why don't we give it a try for a couple of weeks? So we kept the kitten locked in a separate bedroom for one month, gradually introducing them from @ 15 min to longer, always using Ghost's body language as the timer. I talked to my vet early on, to see if there was anything else we could do so Ghost wouldn't feel threatened. She said we were doing everything right and would normally take a month. One month after her rescue, we had a spastic cat tearing all over the house, following Ghost everywhere, leaping after his tail, winding around his legs, curling up with him when he goes to sleep. Whether he likes it or not, he has his new mate. By the way,in the pics of her on this site she is full grown. I call her my little pixie cat.