In an act of kindness which bolsters my waning faith in humankind, a resident of Rushcutters Bay, Sydney, Australia, and a gardener performed a quiet memorial service for an elderly tabby cat who had died alone and who they’d found in the neighbourhood. They didn’t know if the cat had a human guardian.
An unnamed man having seen this act of kindness affixed a poster to a lamppost which advertised to the residents of the neighbourhood what had occurred in the hope that the cat’s owner would come forward and understand what had happened to their cat.
These are the words of the poster:
“On the morning of Thursday 5 September 2019 my neighbour and the gardeners found a mature tabby cat who had sadly passed away, the location was Queens Avenue Rushcutters Bay. Not knowing who the cat belonged to, they arranged for a tasteful burial behind a beautiful large shady tree.
A few kind words were spoken about the cat and the love she had inevitably brought to the family she was a member of.
I write this note in the hope that it finds the owner, so that they will know what happened to this member of their family, and hopefully feel a sense of peace and closure.
Gentle feline, I knew you not.
You loved and were loved.
‘Twas your time to pass,
Now chasing butterflies in the sky.”
The man who put up the poster couldn’t use a photograph of the cat for obvious reasons so used a stock photo of a similar cat instead. The cat in the photo actually does not look old. The guy who created the poster said that he’d have felt awful if he hadn’t done something to mark the passing of the kitty. He thinks the cat died of old age.
Most of the cat news stories we read that come out of Australia are rather negative or completely negative (killing feral cats for instance) but this is pleasantly at the opposite end of the spectrum. Thanks guys for making me feel a bit more optimistic about humankind.
