When the Sun Joins Us

When a sprightly burnt-orange orb of a kid goat recently joined us, we were reminded that some animals should come with a warning label.

Marmalade was one of them.

And the warning? Joy may be contagious.

This little kid goat has such an exuberance for life that her wonky front legs can barely keep up with her.

By the time Marmalade reached us, three weeks of growing had already been written into the shape of the contracted tendons in her little legs. With the easier window for correcting them having passed, helping those little legs do what little kid legs should now requires splints, bandages and that most patient of medicines: time.

And Marmalade, naturally, took it all in her goaty parkour style.

She is to cheery what sunshine is to morning. Her bottle is wonderful. People are wonderful. Being alive appears, in Marmalade’s estimation, to be absolutely wonderful too.

And then there is Pop Adum.

Though species separates them, age and circumstance unite this little goat and lamb. And somewhere between bottles, bandages and borrowed beginnings, something deeper than biology has found them.

Kinship.

Perhaps Marmalade’s funniest trick is disappearing in plain sight. She is almost exactly the same colour as the large and shaggy mat in our vet room. When she settles upon it, Marmalade all but vanishes, save for the brightly coloured bandages declaring that, yes, there is indeed a kid goat here.

But there is something else about her that stays with us.

Unlike so many new arrivals, her eyes hold no wariness and her little body leans towards people rather than away. Everything about Marmalade suggests that kindness is not something she has had to learn to trust.

It seems already woven into her understanding of the world.

And how we wish that were unremarkable.

Perhaps this is why there is something so joyful about watching her greet each new day. Marmalade seems to carry no expectation that the world will be anything other than good.

And for this little kid, we will do everything we can to keep it that way.

So now, each morning, when the sun joins us, so too does Marmalade.

And somehow, it feels a little brighter when she does.