What began as a bereaved Kevin nursing a fragile kitten back to health became the healing journey he never saw coming, stitching him back together, one gentle purr at a time.
Cape Town, South Africa (25 January 2026) – Love, comfort and companionship can come from the most unexpected places. For an elderly homeless man named Kevin Josephson, it came while walking in a field in Delft when he heard the faintest mew.
Sharing the story with news anchor Annika Larsen, who cared enough to learn his story and later share it, Kevin said he’d been mourning the loss of his dear wife of 30 years, Elizabeth, to cancer.
The faint mew had come from a little kitten lying on the ground. He took her to DARG, where the staff told him to bottle-feed her and give her kangaroo care. Kevin was given a bottle and the chest carrier bag he now carries her in, everywhere he goes.
It was trash collection day when Kevin met Annika. It was during their encounter that Annika came to realise how the kitten, now named after his wife, had come to depend on Kevin for survival and him on its companionship at a time he was mired in grief.
“She clings to his neck, and he sings to her. And he knows it’s up to him to keep her alive. His mission to look after her has replaced the overwhelming grief that paralysed him, or at least distracts him. And Elizabeth and Kevin stick together. Because they need one another,” a touched Annika shares.
On most days, Kevin is a man without a face because he is “homeless and has nothing to offer”. But a kitten saw him. And as Annika puts it, “that’s something”.
Love, comfort and companionship didn’t care about this man’s circumstances or what he didn’t have. It came from the most unexpected place and made his world a whole better than it had found him.
Sources: Annika Larsen
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