08/29/2026
Dear Coraline,
We have wanted to write this letter for a very long time, and now that the day is finally here, we are finding it much harder than we imagined.
Since October 7, 2025, you have been part of our everyday life. You made your home in Mrs. Patty’s office, and before long, you became part of her routine in a way that felt permanent. You were there through the busy days, the quiet moments, the phone calls, the paperwork, and everything in between. Nearly eleven months of simply being there, being Cora, and making yourself impossible not to love.
And Patty loved you deeply.
You adored her, too. That much was never a secret.
You were sweet and easygoing, happy to take life as it came, and somehow always managed to carry exactly the right amount of diva with you. You were beautiful, funny, affectionate, and so completely yourself. For all those months, we watched you settle into the life we could give you while we waited for the one we knew was still coming.
Your person.
There were days when other cats went home and you stayed. Weeks turned into months. We kept hoping that the next person who walked through our doors would stop, look at you, and see what we saw.
Today, someone finally did.
Today, someone fell in love with you.
Cora, you are going home.
There is so much joy in writing those words, and if we are being truthful, there are tears too. Because that is the strange, beautiful bargain of shelter work. We spend our days hoping animals will leave us, and then we love them so much that saying goodbye hurts.
But that is what we are here to do.
We love them while they wait.
We learn who they are. We make room for them in our days. We celebrate the little things. We worry about them. We spoil them. We tell anyone who will listen why they are special. We keep believing in the home that has not found them yet.
And then, when that person finally walks through the door, we let them go.
That is the magic of the Animal Welfare League.
Cora, tomorrow Mrs. Patty’s office will be quieter. There will be a space in her day where you have been for almost eleven months, and we know she is going to feel it.
But we would take that empty space a thousand times over if it means you get this.
A home.
A family.
A person who looked at our sweet senior girl and decided that the waiting was over.
So go be loved, Coraline. Go be spoiled. Go settle into your new life with that calm little confidence of yours and just enough diva to make sure everyone understands the arrangement. Go make yourself part of somebody else’s everyday.
We will miss you more than we can say.
But we are so, so happy to have the chance to say goodbye.
Happy forever, Cora. We loved you all the way to this moment. Now it is your family’s turn.
And once we dry these bittersweet tears, we are getting right back to work.
The ASPCA Rescue Effect is happening today, and there are still so many animals here waiting for the moment Coraline just got.
We want 100 more goodbyes today.
Come fall in love.
