Late last year, a Florida resident named Carolyn spotted a cat wandering around outside the duplex where she lives. Soon, she started noticing the cat every day, and began to wonder if she was OK.
Carolyn, who preferred to have her last name omitted, suspected that one of her neighbors had dumped the cat outside. Every day, the cat would wait at her neighbor’s doorstep, hoping someone would let her in.
“She would just be sitting there, kind of waiting to go inside,” Carolyn told The Dodo.
Carolyn watched this go on for a few months, unsure whether she should step in. But then, on Valentine’s Day, Carolyn saw something heartbreaking: The cat had just given birth and was curled up on her neighbor’s step with her six newborn kittens.
At that point, Carolyn knew she had to do something. She asked her neighbor if she could take in the cats, then scooped up the entire family and brought them to her apartment.
For the first few weeks she had the cats, Carolyn focused on keeping the mama, whom she named Rosie, as comfortable and well-fed as possible so she could take care of her babies. At first, Rosie was terrified of her new environment, but once she realized she was finally safe and taken care of, her personality transformed.
“She just flipped a switch and became the sweetest cat I’ve ever met,” Carolyn said.
Carolyn named the two orange boy kittens Leo and Flynn, the two white kittens Koda and Luna, and the two dark tabbies Forrest and Delilah. The kittens are all 12 weeks old now and significantly bigger than they were the day Carolyn rescued them — and more rambunctious. They all love running around and playing together.
“They have slowly been taking over my apartment,” Carolyn said.
While seven cats may sound like a lot to some people, Carolyn has been loving seeing the kittens get to grow up with their siblings and their mama.
“You have to see it to understand how perfect they are together as a family,” Carolyn said.
Before she took in Rosie and her babies, Carolyn had been wanting a cat for a long time and was just waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Then, from one second to the next, she went from having zero cats to having seven — and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It definitely has been a whole transformation of my life,” she said.