Legacy of Carol P. Christ: The Kitten Who Came For The Holidays

This post was originally created on Dec. 24th, 2012

This holiday season I have something warm and fuzzy to be thankful for—Goldilocks, the kitten who came for the holidays. 

As I was preparing for Thanksgiving, I opened my front door to the sound of really loud really pitiful crying.  A tiny grey kitten with a large golden spot on nape of her neck was howling in the middle of the street just a few feet from my door.  Living as I do in a town where there are many homeless cats and kittens, I do not usually respond to such cries.  My dogs maintain “cat patrol” in my back garden and quickly chase strays away.

However, the cries of this little kitten were so insistent that I picked her up. She was smaller than my hand.  My neighbor who was sweeping his porch offered to take her in.  A few hours later he returned her.  She was still mewing loudly, and, he said, she had not stopped crying all day long.  I found a syringe and fed her some milk.  Soon the crying stopped and she began purring in my lap. 

When I told another friend about finding a small grey kitten in the street, she replied that this must be the kitten that had almost gotten run over on the main road the night before.  We determined that the kitten lived with her mother in the storage room of a minimarket around the corner that had just closed for the winter season.  Despite the fact that the kitten seemed too little to be removed from her mother, there didn’t seem to be any point in taking her back to her home, as there was no way to stop a kitten from running out into the street where it would surely be killed.  I decided to keep her.

I named her Goldilocks after the unusual golden spot on the back of her head.  As she has grown, a few smaller golden spots have emerged on her silver coat.  She graduated to solid food the second day and learned to use the kitty litter on the third.  She climbed the stairs not long after.  She is always underfoot or nestled in one of the crevices of my body.  She loves to sit on my shoulder rubbing up against my hair.  As I write, she has crawled under the warm computer on my lap.

She will not always be tiny.  Next year she will be a beautiful grey calico cat with golden markings.  But right now and for a little while longer, she is the kitten who came for the holidays.  I cannot imagine this holiday season without her.

 Happy holidays!

Author: Legacy of Carol P. Christ

We at FAR were fortunate to work along side Carol Christ for many years. She died from cancer in July, 2021. Her work continues through her non-profit foundation, the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. To honor her legacy and to allow as many people as possible to read her thought-provoking and important blogs, we are pleased to offer this new column to highlight her work. We will be picking out special blogs for reposting, making note of their original publication date. View all posts by Legacy of Carol P. Christ