In the fall of 2021, Chris Thomas noticed a small hole in the fence surrounding his backyard. While surveying the damage one day, he spotted an adorable gray face peering in from the other side.
An avid cat lover, Thomas attempted to coax the stray cat through the hole. But the poor girl was too scared to wiggle her way into his yard. She ran away but returned to Thomas’ house shortly after.
Thomas began leaving food out for the girl, whom he named Frances, and she soon felt comfortable enough to enter his yard. When Thomas finally got a full look at her, he quickly realized she was pregnant.
He wanted to take the expectant mama inside, but she was still unsure.
“She was clearly hungry and lonely, but she was afraid of humans,” Thomas told The Dodo. “So, I just started feeding her and gaining her trust. And then one night, she showed up injured and I brought her inside.”
Thankfully, Frances’ injury was minor, but Thomas was thankful nonetheless when he’d successfully lured her indoors.
Frances proved to be just as grateful as Thomas when she gave birth to four kittens in his basement less than two days later.
“I hand-delivered them all,” Thomas said. “She was the most amazing mother from day one, and I fell in love with all of them right away.”
Already the father of an orange cat, Ollie, Thomas was expecting to adopt out Frances’ kittens once they were old enough. But he quickly realized that the entire family was meant to stay together.
“I couldn’t bring myself to separate them,” Thomas said. “So, now I have eight cats. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”
It’s been over two years since Frances’ babies were born, and the whole family is thriving. The kittens are now fully grown, with fun personalities of their own, and their doting mama cat couldn’t be more in love with them.
Thomas is obsessed with his unexpected tiny family, and he’s since found a way to remind everyone who enters their home just how it all started.
“My ex-girlfriend cut out the part of the fence with the hole in it that Frances came through when she was a stray,” Thomas wrote on the X platform, previously Twitter. “[I] just hung it up in my living room.”
Thomas has adopted two more cats since Frances’ arrival, completing his family of eight felines. He loves them all equally, but Frances will always hold an extra-special place in his heart.
“She saved me,” Thomas wrote on X. “[You] can’t convince me she’s not an angel.”