Valerie Stevenson’s cat was playing around when her pet knocked the urn containing the ashes of her beloved cat Jewels off her dresser, 20 years after her death.
The urn broke.
As the longtime Burlington, Ont., resident started to move the ashes to a new urn, she found a dog tag among them.
“I wanted to cry,” Stevensoln said. “I was shaken, just shaken in disbelief thinking, ‘Holy crap, now what? Where’s my girl?'”
Jewels had not been on Valerie’s dresser, as she had thought, for the last 20 years.
She took the bone-shaped tag and scrubbed it until the old letters were visible.
“Sparky,” read the charred tag, along with a Maplewood Drive address and a phone number.
Since then, Stevenson, 66, has made it her mission to find Sparky’s “rightful owners.”
Valerie and her daughter, Rachel Stevenson, have posted on local Facebook groups and Reddit forums. They called the phone number on the tag, only to find it had switched owners. Valerie also went to the address on the tag but the current residents had only been living there a few years.
Valerie also went to the library and Burlington city hall, again with no luck.
Valerie hopes Sparky’s owners might have Jewels’s remains, but even if they don’t, she would be happy Sparky went back to where he was meant to be.
“In the meantime, we are holding on to him,” said Rachel.
Rachel and Valerie described Jewels as “warm,” “sweet” and “beautiful.”
“She would let us dress her up in doll clothes. She was like one of those cats that was just beyond tolerant,” Rachel said.
“She would sleep between me and my sister every single night without fail.”
Jewels was adopted in the 1990s from a local shelter and named after Valerie’s former career as a jeweller. The cat lived a long and happy life, Rachel said.
“She was very close to every member of the family.”
The family kept several animal ashes in urns over the years. Rachel said their past pets are also a “part of our family.”
“We have always felt it’s so important to keep them nearby,” she said.
Jewels was among several of the family’s pets cremated by Gateway, a pet aftercare provider, and the urns rest atop Valerie’s dresser.
“[The situation] actually casts a shadow over my whole collection and makes me think, ‘is it really them?'” Valerie said.
After Jewels’s urn was broken, Valerie bought a similar one off of Facebook Marketplace. It was while transferring those ashes that she found Sparky’s tag.
“I have [the urn] here now, but I don’t have a cat to put into it,” said Valerie.
After Jewels died in March 2005, the family paid Gateway an extra fee for a private cremation, which Valerie said cost her around $450 at the time.
Once she realized there must have been a mix-up with the ashes, Valerie contacted Gateway, which told her they did not have records going back that far and would not be able to help her find Sparky’s owners.
James Garrity, vice-president and general manager at Gateway, told CBC Hamilton he was “heartbroken” to hear about the family’s experience and their hearts “go out to them during what we know is an incredibly emotional time.”
Garrity said that due to the length time that’s passed and the company’s record retention policy, they could not access information from 2005 to help the family figure out what went wrong.
The pet aftercare industry has evolved significantly in recent years, Garrity said in an email statement, and Gateway has been leading the way in new systems that include digital records “that will last indefinitely.”
“While we cannot change what has happened, we have been in direct contact with the family to offer our support, including a refund and memorial items of their choosing, as a sincere gesture of compassion,” he said.
Valerie said Gateway sent her a “heartfelt” letter apologizing for what happened, which she accepted.
Her focus, however, continues to be on Sparky and getting him home.
“He belongs with them,” Valerie said.
