The other day there was a kind, heartwarming story in the American outback that we want to share. Matthew, a truck driver, lost his friend, a gray cat named Ash, two months ago. He was desperate to find him when he got a phone call from the place he least expected. And it was good news!
Ash has been traveling with Matthew for his third year, his whole life. He has his own place in the cab of the truck, he likes to travel, and he brightens up his owner’s boring workday as much as he can. And the latter is crazy about the cat, because Matthew has no family. They often have to drive long distances from home, but that is the peculiarity of their work: they have to deliver goods all over the country.
Two months ago, while driving through northern Ohio, Matthew lost Ash. He was frightened by the noise, and he yucked into the bushes — no matter how many times the man looked for the cat or called out for him, he never found him. With a heavy heart, Matthew went to fulfill the order, and then rushed right back. But Ash was nowhere to be found. Since then, he’d taken all the orders so he could line up a route through that parking lot in Ohio, but it was like the cat was gone with the ends.
The other day Matthew got a call from Fairport, New York, in the eastern United States. It’s a long way from Ohio, and even farther from his native Texas — the animal shelter also wondered how an animal with a microchip from that region ended up in their area. Ash was picked up by a compassionate woman who saw the freezing cat and could not pass by. The shelter examined him, found the microchip and called the number given. And Matthew ran across the country to meet his friend!
How the cat ended up in a different place, how it survived, why it wasn’t found sooner, it’s impossible to know now. But Matthew is eternally grateful to those who advised him to put Ash’s microchip in as a kitten, because without it, no one would have known anything. He considers it a kind of Christmas present and a small miracle.
