Finding Hope

Hello, my name is Kailey. Kailey the cat. I used to have the perfect life but the past few weeks it has not gone too well for me. My owner, Sara, lost her job after the company she worked at went bankrupt. She lost everything. After that her husband left her and she had to move to a homeless shelter. The homeless shelter did not allow pets of any kind, so she had to give me up and that is how I ended up here at the shelter.

At the shelter I met Max, a calico cat, and he became my closest friend. Max said to me, “Well at least you had a home. I never had that chance.” 

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“I was born on the street and raised on the street. I wish it stayed that way but this person wearing a blue uniform found me and took me here.”

“That sounds horrible. I could never imagine living in those filthy streets and eating trash.” I was listening to my good friend, Max, as he shared his sad story.

“Hey, it was not as bad as I made it sound. I got by.”

Max looked sad and I knew I might have hurt his feelings. “Sorry for offending you but that just doesn’t sound like the life I would want for myself.”

He answered, “Apology accepted. Earlier you asked if you were going to die. Why did you ask that?”

“This isn’t one of those animal shelters where if you don’t get adopted within a certain time frame you will get put down?” I asked.

“Oh, you must not have gotten the memo. This is not a kill shelter. You can stay as long as you need to if you don’t cause trouble,” my friend Maxed shared.

“So I don’t have to die?” I replied.

“No, you don’t,” my good friend Max said.

“Oh thank heaven!” I shouted. “So now what do we do?”

“Don’t worry. Someone will find you cute and will adopt you,” Max assured me. 

“When might that be?” I replied.

“I don’t have any idea. I have been here for over three years,’’ my friend Max said. 

“Three years?! I’m going to be here forever!” I shouted.

“Don’t worry,” Max said. “The people at the shelter will take care of you. They have been very good to me. They feed you, bathe you and play with you.”

“Well, I guess that is not so bad,” I replied. 

Then out of nowhere, this lady came into the room and picked both of us up and took us into a different room. She lowered us into a bathtub with nice warm water. It felt good on my fur.

My friend Max purred from across the bathtub, “See this place is not so bad.”

After our baths, we were taken to the playground area in the back of the shelter. It had a racetrack for us to run on and a scratching post for Max and me to scratch and climb on. We started running on the racetrack but then out of nowhere these women came and took us inside.

Max said, “They’re here to take us to a room and play with some humans who volunteer at the shelter.”

There were three of them and they seemed nice. They played with us and gave us toys. It was fun. Later in the day Max explained that maybe one of the volunteers might adopt us but he said not to get my hopes too high.

The day finally came when many people came to the shelter to look around for a pet to adopt.

“Like I said, don’t get your hopes up too high,” my friend Max said. “We would need to look very cute for us to have a chance.”

I told him to have hope and to stay vigilant for people that may want to adopt us. He just gave me a very disappointed look and said, “You just don’t understand, do you?”

I was hurt by his words, but I did not want to make him even more mad than he already was. Then this person came in. It was a woman with brown hair wearing a green vest and orange sweatpants. At first I did not know who this woman was but when she came closer I realized who it was. It was my old owner, Sara. 

She looked way better than she did when she gave me up. Max and I could see the smile on her face when she saw us. She played with us, cuddled with us and took us outside to play with the scratching post. After that she said that she was going to take both of us back with her to her new home. I was so happy to see joy on Max’s face for what looked like the first time in years.

He said, “I can’t believe it! After so long I’m finally going to have a family!” 

 I purred and replied, “I’m so happy for you.”

After getting all the paperwork taken care of, Sara took Max and me to the new place where she lived. The place was nice. Max was happy with his new home. I was just glad to have a new life outside the shelter back with Sara and my new friend, Max. We were both going to be together, and we were both going to have a real home again with a loving owner.

“Should we go for a walk in the backyard?” Max asked.

I smiled and walked alongside him. Finding our way through a hard life takes hope. We were so glad that we found hope that day.