During a birthday party for Denise Cilley’s daughter in August of 2015, their family cat, Ashes, went missing. The Maine family looked for Ashes for a while, but eventually gave up, figuring she’d probably become prey for a predator. But that changed last week when Cilley received a message from an animal shelter saying they’d found Ashes … in Florida.
“I had a voicemail from a shelter in Florida that said they found my cat, and I was like, ‘that’s weird.’” recalls Cilley. She didn’t think they were missing a cat, but when she got on the phone with the shelter they told her the female gray tabby’s microchip contained their information and she put it together. “Oh my goodness. It’s got to be Ashes. I haven’t seen her in six and a half years,’” she told the shelter.
The Cilley’s friend in Florida, Janet Williams, picked up Ashes from the shelter and had one of her friends accompany the cat back to Maine where she was reunited with her grateful family. When asked if she had any idea how Ashes made it the nearly 15-hundred miles to Florida, Williams says, “I have interrogated her quite strictly and she is not talking.”
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