There are many bad things in the world, things that make you sad and upset and tempt you to throw large, breakable things against the wall and rail against whatever it is that’s bringing you down. In those moments, grab hold of the fact that a cat’s owners say she survived 30 days trapped in a box that traveled cross-country, without food or water to sustain her.

Her owner says it all started in Suffolk, V.A. in September, when movers were packing up the family home as they prepared to move to Hawaii, reports WAVY.com. Mee Moowe the cat went missing at some point while the movers were there.

The family thought maybe she’d just run away, scared by the movers and all the noise they were making, and decided to delay the move for three more nights. They stayed in the empty house, hoping Mee Moowe would come back.

Finally, they were forced to leave, and abandon hope of finding the beloved cat.

“It made me sick. It was heartbreaking,” her owner said. “My girls were devastated trying to tell me that I couldn’t leave without Mee Moowe.”

It took 36 days for the family’s stuff to travel from Virginia to Hawaii, from packing day to unpacking time. Movers were unloading boxes at the new home when Mee Moowe’s owner says she heard a faint meow for help. Or at least, that’s how I’d translate it.

“The guy goes, ‘what was that sound?’ and my heart just kind of sunk for a minute and I thought, ‘no, no way.’ And then we heard it again. And the guy said, ‘was that a cat?’” she said.

It was Mee Mowe, weak, anemic and half her former size, with her eyes crusted shut, inside a box. She wasn’t in good shape, but her Hawaii vet says she’s going to make it, despite surviving without food or water for more than a month.

“I was in shock,” her owner said, adding that the cat went right up to her daughters and won’t let them leave her. “I couldn’t believe it. I think I was grateful that she was alive, but I was furious this happened to her.”

WAVY.com spoke with the veterinarian’s office that treated Mee Moowe in Hawaii. They said she exhibited classic symptoms of starvation, but somehow, she survived more than a month without food or water.

But there’s another snarl before she can curl up at home with her humans — Mee Moowe was supposed to stay in Virginia with a family member so she could get all the vaccinations she needed to move to Hawaii. Now she has to stay in quarantine at the vet in Hawaii for three months, at a cost to her family of $4,000.

The family is happy to be reunited, despite that, in light of the seemingly impossible trip their cat made to get back to them. Vets say it’s not likely a cat would survive such an ordeal, but a lot depends on the health of the feline before undergoing such a hellish trip.

“I’m just as shocked as they are,” her owner said. “I have no idea how she did it.”

Owner: Trapped cat survived 30-day trip in moving box [WAVY.com]

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