She arrived during the shelter’s cruelest season, a cat whose story of suffering and sacrifice made us all stop just to take it in. Because of all we don’t know about the cat now called Mama Jeanne, what we do know says it all.
She gave birth to four kittens as a starving stray, then got hit by a car when she left them to find food. With a crushed right leg and a broken left hip, she dragged herself back to her babies and kept nursing them anyhow. Animal Control officers found her days later and brought the little family into the Aiken County Animal Shelter. It would be their home for weeks.
Mama Jeanne could barely stand when she arrived, but pushed through excruciating pain to keep being a mom. Amazingly, her hip healed while she nursed. Her kittens grew healthy and were adopted. But Mama Jeanne’s crushed leg did not respond to treatment and had to be amputated. So, as a newly three-legged adult cat with no pedigree and little promise, she was left to compete for a home in a shelter so crowded it’ll take in 1,500 animals May through July. The shelter’s vet, Dr. Lisa Levy, was worried about Mama Jeanne’s chances and asked me to post her plight on social media.
Meanwhile, Irene Marie Ortega was working nights as a nurse at the burn center in Augusta, GA. For several months, she spent time between shifts scrolling through websites of shelters as far away as New York looking for the right cat.
“They were cute, but I didn’t feel a connection.” Then, on July 10, she saw Mama Jeanne’s post on Facebook. “I was so touched with her story. After just one reading, I was sure she was The One.” She traded shifts with another nurse to adopt Mama Jeanne that day.
Because, in many ways, Mama Jeanne’s story is hers too.
Ortega’s three children were tiny when she became a single mom. A native of the Philippines living in Chicago, she had to find the courage and persistence to make a new life. She moved to the Atlanta area and then Augusta, where she worked nights in nursing homes, spent days in nursing school, and in-between gave it all to care for her children.
“No matter how hard the struggles were, I endured everything just to give the best to my kids,” says Ortega, whose children are now grown and pursuing their own careers in nursing and medicine. “I felt the pains of Mama Jeanne. I’m a single mom, too. I want to give her the life she deserves after all she went through.”
Mama Jeanne was adopted not despite her broken story, but because of it. Social media can be a lifeline for animals otherwise lost in the crowd of overflowing kennels. Like it was for the mama cat who gave her all.
“We love Mama Jeanne so much. She’s safe now,” Ortega says.
Their lives are in our hands.
– By Martha Anne Tudor
BY THE NUMBERS
From May 1 to July 27, the County Animal Shelter received more than 1,500 strays and surrendered pets.
PETS OF THE WEEK
HECTOR
Mixed breed, male, 2 years old, 55 pounds – $35
RODRIGO
Domestic Shorthair Tuxedo, male, 2 months old, 1.5 pounds – $10
