A dying woman left a heartwarming note to her cat’s future owner.
We are sharing this story to celebrate Adopt-a-Cat Month.

Every June, the American Humane Society celebrates Adopt-A-Cat Month because it's the time of year when the most kittens are born, and sadly, the highest number find their way to shelters.
The American Humane Society is encouraging people to adopt shelter cats by asking cat owners to share their favorite feline stories, so we're sharing ours.
In May of 2015, a dying woman knew that she would have to give her cat up to a shelter when she passed, because her son's rental didn't allow pets. After she passed, the son surrendered the five-year-old orange cat named Susie to the Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center in Derwood, Maryland, with a note from the cat's later owner.
In the heartbreaking letter, the former owner detailed the quiet life they lived together and told the future owner that Susie was shy, but eventually became a loving companion.


Here's the letter in full:
Dear friend
Thank you for adopting my friend, Susie. She was one of three cats in a litter.
November 15, 2010, is her approximate birthday. She moved in with me on December 1, 2010.
Until I felt sure she knew where her home was, I kept her in the house.
After she was left out, she disappeared for four days. I thought I would never see her again. On the fourth night we had an unusually loud thunderstorm. There was no rain, just noise.
That morning when I went out to call her, I did not expect to see her, but she came a running. She came in the house with me and has not been willing to go out again unless I go with her.
She became an indoor cat.
Susie is afraid of everyone and everything. It took her six to eight months to realise I am her friend. I have tried for a long time to get her to go outside. She won't do it unless I go with her.
Perhaps if I could go for walks with her she would get used to going outside but I am too unstable to leave my front porch. She will go on the porch as long as I go with her. The best she will do is walk along the garden next to the front porch.
I believe she would follow me if I could go for a walk.
It would be nice if she would make friends with our dog. They get along together but Susie keeps some distance from the dog. I never worry about them when I leave them in the house together.
Susie is unusual but I enjoy her company. She is a good snuggler but she likes to be the boss. She enjoys being petted. She spends much of her time on my bed but always seems to know where I am.
I hope you enjoy Susie as much as I have.
When Susie arrived at the shelter, she was shy and hid from her caretakers. Knowing that it would be tough to find a home for the cat, the shelter made the letter public.
"I'm sure that when she wrote it, she wrote it just to the intent of getting it to the adopter," said Katherine Zenzano, community outreach coordinator of Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center, said according to ABC News. "But we realized Susie was wasn't going anywhere. Some cats are really great at selling themselves and Susie wasn't selling herself."
"If this letter can in any way help Susie, or any other cats in the same situation, we are happy to get it out there because we think it can touch a lot of people," she continued.
Fifty-five days later, a woman who says she has experience with shy cats adopted Susie. "She just felt she had the ability to work with Susie and wanted to give her the home that she needed," Zenzano, told WTOP.

Click here to learn more about Adopt-A-Cat Month.
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A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via
A man with tape over his mouth.via
A husband is angry with his wife. via 
a man sitting at a desk with his head on his arms Photo by
Can a warm cup of tea help you sleep better? If you believe it, then yes. Photo by 
Three women sit on a blanket in the park. 
Two women engaging in a pleasant conversation inside a coffee shop
Two men engaging in a peaceful disagreement.
Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.