You decided that you wanted to move
to an apartment that didn't allow pets. I don't know what lured you. Maybe it was a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Maybe it was a great view. Maybe you liked the woodwork. At any rate, it was more important to you than she was.
So you took her down to the shelter, still wearing her cute little pink
leopard collar with a bow, and you cheerfully wrote on the card that
she was very healthy for her age and friendly and just likes to sleep in
the sun! I guess you knew her pretty well - you put her birthday down on
the card, too, making me believe you've probably had her for her entire
life.
Then you left, secure in your rationalization that somehow, in the midst
of kitten season, your seventeen year old cat would find a home.
The shelter took a picture of her scared face and big eyes and put it on
the web. For two weeks, I looked at that picture. I hoped someone else
would see her fear and feel compelled to help her, but the public wasn't
seeing her. She was back in isolation, getting vitamin B shots and
subcutaneous fluids. The tech wrote "depressed" on her card. I'm not
surprised. I'd be depressed too if I went from "sleeping in the sun"
to a metal cage with a thin layer of newspaper.
Finally today, I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt too guilty thinking
about her sitting in that cage at her age. So I went down and I got her,
and now she's curled up on a fleece baby blanket in a cat tree in my
bathroom. When I go in there, she rubs her head on my hand.
Today, I cleaned up your mess. I felt worse for your cat than you did.
And all over the city, other rescuers did the same. They rescued your
abandoned cats and dogs and bunnies and exotics. And we all wondered the
same thing as we did it: How could you create this situation? How is it
that you feel no remorse? How is it that you were you able to walk away
from an animal you shared your home with for a year, ten years, fifteen
years, knowing that they might die because of your actions?
I'll never meet you to ask you those questions. I just hope I meet the
person who will be good enough to give your baby that sunny spot to sleep
for the rest of her life (however long that is). She deserves it, and
it's a crying shame you didn't have the decency to give it to her
