Of Graveyards and Kittens

It’s been a long month or two since I’ve written anything like this, but it was a needed couple of months. It’s been a couple months of growing pains and laughter, complete with everything from Hirsch’s propensity for setting off the fire alarm to testing out my dad’s Shirley Temple recipe on my friends. I’ve come to feel more or less at home here. I no longer fear (or relish in) getting lost late at night, a feeling I may have to find a way back to again sooner or later. But, for all the normality I’ve managed to find, Bard still manages to surprise me from time to time.

For this story, I need to give you an idea of the geography of my fine campus, or at least a portion of it. We’re a small college in the middle of the woods; Bard is refreshingly like my home in New Hampshire in that respect. I live in one of the quiet dorms, which is off of main campus and separated from it by a patch of forest. It is possible to get to main campus by taking main roads, but it takes much longer. The quickest path is through the little college graveyard, which cuts through the section of woods.

You also need to know something about the local wildlife, or rather one element in particular: kittens. Cats pretty regularly roam the campus, likely because some of the dorms leave cat food on their porches for local strays. Right now we have a gang of little grey and white kittens that look like they can’t be more than a month old, and they seem to have taken up residence near Hirsch. With those facts in mind, we can begin.

My roommate and best friend had to be out past dark for a variety of reasons tonight. As she approached the unlighted shortcut through the graveyard she realized her phone, and only source of light, was low on batteries. She was nervous to make the trek alone with the possibility of her light source dying, so she called me and I left the dorm with my own mostly-charged phone to meet her.

On the way down the hill that leads to our dorm, I came across one of these grey and white kittens. I smiled at in and said, “Hey sweetie. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna bother you.” Then I continued on my mission. But I wasn’t alone. The little grey and white kitten followed me, then eventually trotted in front of me, weaving back and forth in front of my feet. Occasionally it batted at the dead fall leaves as we made our way through the graveyard to reach my roommate. It was clearly playful. It kind of reminded me of my dad’s cat, Junior, in his kittenhood.

When we reached the other end of the graveyard, it seemed like the kitten was going to leave me, but it trotted along with me and my roommate back through the graveyard. As we walked, we talked about how lively and sweet it was. Eventually we started calling it Angel, because it seemed to be trying to be a tiny, adorable guardian angel in the middle of the star-lit night. It even followed us all the way to the porch of Hirsch. When we got there, we met another friend and dorm mate, who brought a bowl of milk out for Angel, a sweet kitten who clearly deserved a better life.

As soon as we got back inside, I emailed Bard’s head of security about the kittens on campus, hoping that there was something we could do to find them homes. The head of security immediately found a home for Angel and said that if I could catch the kitten, a good home would be waiting for it. My hope is that my roommate and I can catch Angel before the snow starts to fall. Hopefully she’s living close by. I still want to do something for the other kittens on campus if I can, but I’m more than happy to start with Angel.