Today, I cleaned up your mess

This is a striking comment but one that needs to be seen:

You decided that you wanted to move to an apartment that didn't allow
pets (and by the way, landlords are forbidden to do this in Toronto).
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.

This was originally posted in 2006. I am emailing this because the
message hasn't sunk in! I am hoping that just a a few people, well at
least one person, passes this on.

Author Unknown