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Sarah Kridler's cat May would greet Sarah at the end of every day, running to the front door of the apartment when Sarah returned from classes at N.C. State University, rubbing up against Sarah's legs, meowing and begging to be petted.
Sarah thought of May as her guardian angel, always loving, never questioning.
So when Sarah got in a car wreck on her way home to Charlotte in August and was hospitalized 26 days, her family avoided telling her that May disappeared when a bystander opened her car carrier.
Sarah, they knew, would heal. They weren't so sure how she would cope without May.
May was white with tabby spots and a beauty mark above her lip that reminded people of Cindy Crawford. The animal shelter in Raleigh where Sarah volunteers named her Cindy. She kept reaching her paw out of the cage, tapping Sarah's head as if to say, Don't forget. I'm right here.
Sarah couldn't forget the sweet little cat. She adopted her and changed her name to reflect the month of the adoption, May 2008.
May was an indoor cat and Sarah didn't like leaving her alone for the weekend. So she put May her in a car carrier that fateful afternoon three months ago and drove with her toward Charlotte.
Sarah, who is 21, broke her left femur in the wreck, lacerated her spleen, fractured her pelvic bone in three places, fractured four ribs and a vertebra. She was in intensive care her first five days at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital and now has a titanium rod in her leg.
Her parents held off telling Sarah about May until the day before her discharge, nearly a month after the accident.
Sarah, as expected, was inconsolable. She calls that day the worst in her life. Worse than the day of the wreck? She doesn't remember the wreck. But she couldn't forget May. She was sure she would never see her again.
As Sarah recuperated in Charlotte, she received several calls from hospital employees taking surveys, so when a call from that area code came Nov. 5 she almost didn't answer it.
Do you have a cat named May? the caller asked.
Sarah screamed.
Someone had found May and taken her to the Guilford County Animal Shelter. Her white fur was the color of red clay, her ears and nose were raw with flea bites and she had dropped from 8 pounds to5.
The shelter was able to locate Sarah because of an identification microchip implanted between May's shoulders.
"The microchip saved my cat's life," Sarah said. "A lot of people think their cat will never get loose, or their dog will never get lost. You never know what could happen."
Sarah is working toward a major in pre-vet zoology with a minor in animal science. She wants to become a veterinarian and work in a shelter. She wants to make sure that every adopted pet has a microchip.
If not for a microchip, May wouldn't cuddle up again tonight on top of Sarah's legs.
