She was abandoned 💔
While working in the outdoor garden section of Lowe’s one afternoon, employee Ryan Finchum suddenly caught the faint sound of a meow. Curious, he followed the noise until he spotted a small cat peeking at him from behind a fence.
As Ryan went about his shift, the cat trailed him like a shadow, meowing insistently and even plopping down in the middle of an aisle as if demanding to be noticed. At first, he wondered if she might belong to someone. But when no one came to claim her, the truth became clear — she had been abandoned.
Nearby, in the grass along the roadside, sat a rusty old animal crate with a hole in it. It looked as though someone had left it there some time ago.
Realizing the cat needed help, Ryan called his fiancée, Makena Waldrip. She was out with friends at the time but immediately dropped everything to come. “He told me, ‘I just have a feeling about this cat … like she’s meant to be ours,’” Waldrip recalled.
When Makena arrived, she brought a carrier, unsure how the little cat would react. To their surprise, the kitty walked straight in without hesitation and chirped softly the entire ride home.
The couple named her Tilly. That first evening, Makena sat on the floor with her for over an hour, while Tilly nestled into her lap, pressing her head into Makena’s hand as though she already knew she was safe.
“She is genuinely such a sweetheart, and I still can’t understand why anyone would dump her like that,” Makena said.
Within just a few days, Tilly settled comfortably into her new home, even alongside the couple’s two other cats. Now, she spends most of her time curled up on the couch wrapped in blankets, her favorite spot in the house.
“She’s our little couch potato,” Makena said with a smile. “Every day when I get home from work, she’s still in the same cozy spot. She loves relaxing, but she’s never too lazy to chase the laser toy.”
For Ryan and Makena, rescuing Tilly felt less like chance and more like destiny.
“She’s lucky we found her,” Makena said, “but really, we’re the lucky ones. We’re so proud and happy to be her mom and dad.”