Last Updated on May 28, 2026 by admin
Some local shelters keep a wall of photographs of the cats who have been there longest. The board is for adopters who have not yet figured out that the cat they came in for was always going to be the one they did not come in for.
Imagine, for a moment, a “missed connections” section in a small-town newspaper — the kind that used to be in the back of the classifieds, beside the lost wallets and the part-time piano lessons. Imagine it for shelter cats. Imagine it the way someone might write it the night after they did not bring the cat home.
Below: a small collection.
To the gray tabby in cage 17. Saturday, 1:42 p.m.
You looked up when I walked past. You were sitting on the second shelf, your back legs tucked under you, the same way my last cat used to sit. There was a small white sock on your right front foot. You blinked. I blinked back. I walked past you because I had already filled out the paperwork for a kitten, who I had told my partner about, and who was already, in some way, ours.
I have thought about you every day for nine days.
I am driving back tomorrow morning. I have a carrier in the car. I have not told anybody yet.
If you are still there, I would like to try again.
To the senior orange in the corner. Thursday, late afternoon.
You were asleep when I arrived. You did not wake up when I walked past. You did not wake up when the dog two cages down barked. You did not wake up when my child, who had been crying about the iguana, stopped crying about the iguana and pressed her nose against the wire and said, very quietly, “this is the one.”
The volunteer said you were fifteen. The volunteer said you were a senior surrender from a couple who had downsized.
I wrote down the kennel number on the back of a receipt. I did not say anything in the car. I am writing this from a hotel parking lot in Indianapolis.
If you do not have a home by Sunday, I am coming back.
To the black-and-white in the corner near the laundry door. Tuesday, two weeks ago.
You stretched, on your blanket, and showed me the bottoms of your back feet. The pads were dark gray. The volunteer said you had been in eight months. The volunteer said you were not great with strangers and that today you had been unusually awake.
I am sorry. I had to leave. The boys in the car were already restless and I had told them, before we came in, that we were just looking.
I am no longer just looking.
I called the shelter on Friday. They said someone had been in to ask about you. They could not tell me whether the someone had filled out paperwork.
If you are reading this — and obviously you are not — I hope it was a good home.
If it was not, I am still here.
Most of the time, the missed connection ends here. The cat finds a home with someone else. The cat does not find a home. The cat moves to a different kennel and the post is never written.
But sometimes, on a Tuesday at four in the afternoon, somebody walks back in through the front door of a shelter with a carrier they did not have nine days ago, and the volunteer at the desk looks up and says, “you came back,” and the person says, “yes.”
And the cat in cage 17, who is older than they remember, and who has eaten too many shelter biscuits in the interim, is still there.
Sometimes it ends that way.
You can drive back tomorrow.