Maggie, Lost and Found
Cynthia Embree-Lavoie
50plus Magazine
Six years ago, I lost my dear cat Paki to cancer shortly before moving from Sacramento to Portland. Once we settled into our new home I was eager to adopt another cat but life got in the way. I was diagnosed with breast cancer and told that with an immune system compromised by chemotherapy I knew I shouldn’t handle cat litter.
As soon as it was safe, I signed up to foster cats from Multnomah County Animal Services so I could get to know a cat before committing to adopt. Maggie was my first, and it took only a few days to know she was a “keeper.” She was sweet and calm, and followed me around like a duckling after her mama.
Whenever I sat down she jumped up into my lap. Mostly this was fine (especially in the chilly weather when having a furball on my lap was comfy), but it did make knitting a challenge.
I couldn’t adopt Maggie right away because she was on a legal hold for reasons I didn’t know while fostering her. Then, when she was released for adoption, I was told that she had been picked up by the police when they arrested a street person for some minor infraction. This person had Maggie with him in a carrier and when police turned her over to MCAS, he was given a limited time to get himself straightened out and retrieve her. When he didn’t meet the deadline, he forfeited Maggie.
Mags and I lived together happily for a few years. Then one day I got an odd text from the microchip company where she was registered. It said, “Jake [not his real name] in Seattle has found your cat. Please contact him to retrieve her.” This didn’t make any sense, since Maggie was on my lap, so I ignored the message. Soon I received a couple of similar messages, as did my wife, so I figured I’d better contact Jake to straighten out the confusion.
This was the story I heard:
Jake didn’t have Maggie — he was looking for her. Maggie (with a different name), had been Jake’s cat since she was a kitten and he loved her dearly. He had fallen on hard times, including addiction and homelessness. Four years ago, he heard about a job in Portland and packed up his backpack and Maggie in her soft-sided carrier and headed from Seattle to PDX. When he arrived, the job had fallen through, so here he was, with his cat and no money, no place to stay and no way to get back to Seattle. He was arrested on a minor charge and the police took his beloved cat.
Unable to get his legal situation straightened out before the deadline, he had to return home without her. Over the the next couple of years Jake got sober, got his life together, had stable housing and work and finally tracked down the microchip company to find his cat.
At the end of our conversation, he said, “I know I have absolutely no right to ask you this — you adopted Maggie in good faith — but I can’t tell you how much it would mean to me to have her back.” I told him I’d think about it and get back to him.
I thought about it a lot. Jake seemed sincere (he’d even sent me sweet photos of him and Maggie) and ultimately I decided he needed Maggie more than I did. I contacted him and we agreed he would come down from Seattle on the bus (he didn’t have a car) and I would meet him at the Portland station with Maggie.
We met at the station downtown on a sunny June day. When we found each other I took Maggie out of my cat carrier and handed her to Jake. He wrapped her in his arms and wept. Then he sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk while we chatted a while. The whole time, Maggie sat curled in his lap, out of the carrier, calmly looking around, as if she felt totally at home and knew that’s where she belonged. Eventually Jake put her in his soft-sided carrier and headed in to catch the bus home.
I’ve heard from Jake a few times in the last year. Sometimes he sends me updated photos of him and “our” cat. I miss her, of course, but I have never for a moment doubted my decision to return her to her loving “dad.”
Cynthia worked before retirement in non-profit financial management, moving to Portland with her wife in 2018. Her passion is drawing and painting animals.