Everyone loves touching stories involving beloved pets. When my family moved to New Zealand back in the 70s, we had to say goodbye to our black cat Midnight, giving her to a friend in the neighborhood. We returned to the U.S. a year later, moving to a new city about 20 miles from our original location. To our total surprise, our cat somehow found us, walking right in the door of our new house to say hello before returning to her current home. This week we heard the happy news that a cat who had been missing and presumed drowned in the terrible 2011 tsunamis of northern Japan was found alive and healthy, and reunited with his owners. The cat was named Suika and lived with his family, the elderly Yamagishi couple, in the city of Rikuzentaka, in Iwate Prefecture. When the earthquake hit, the city was devastated by the wall of water that rushed in, overwhelming the seawall and destroying 80% of the buildings, though one old Japanese pine tree survived, now dubbed the “miracle pine.” The Yamagishi couple evacuated safely, but their cat was missing and presumed to have been lost in the destruction. More than three year later, the cat was found by a city employee who decided to publish pictures in the newspaper to see if the owners could be located, which led to this happy reunion. It’s like a true version of the Ghibli film The Cat Returns…
A happy story about a cat finding his way home…
