By Julia Train
Melissa Bowers Vola and her family thought they lost their cat Zoe forever after a house fire, but after two years they are now reunited with their pet.
Vola’s family home in Egg Harbor Township caught on fire on Feb. 1, 2022. Her 10-year-old daughter was inside the house, alone with their cat and four dogs—one of which didn’t make it out.
Zoe, the cat, was seen in the driveway by a neighbor after the fire. The Vola Family was relieved the cat got out.
The family searched for several months, with the help of relatives, friends and neighbors.
Lost cat posters were hung throughout the area and people put out traps, food and water to bring her home.
“People were trying to help us and we weren’t really able to do much because we were trying to deal with our grief and what just happened,” said Vola. “We didn’t know where we were going to live and our dog died.”
After losing their home, the family stayed in a hotel for a month, then rented a house for six months until they bought one close to English Creek Avenue.
For a while, every once in a while, a neighbor would say they thought they saw the cat, but weren’t certain. So Vola would drive over and search, to no avail.
She recalled telling her kids not to worry about their cat, that she’s probably safe at someone’s house. In reality, Vola feared that either an animal preyed on the cat or a car hit her.
On Thursday, Feb. 29, Debbie Burgess, a member of the Original Egg Harbor Township Area Happenings Facebook group, posted two photos of a cat that looked like Zoe in her front yard, located around English Creek Manor.
She captioned it, “Is anyone missing this beautiful cat? Long hair, looks to be part angora.”
When Vola saw the post, she was skeptical, but decided it couldn’t hurt to reach out.
After contacting Burgess, sending her a picture of Zoe and realizing the two cats’ eyes were the same, she drove five minutes to the house. The cat wasn’t there, so Vola left, but when she got home, Burgess called her and said the cat let her pick her up.
Vola went back to the house to see the cat and was able to pet the skinny, dirty cat. She called her husband to help her confirm it was Zoe because she thought she was hallucinating. After much deliberation, they concluded the cat was Zoe and brought her home.
After grieving the loss of their cat for two years, Vola surprised her now 12-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter, who said the reunion helped her deal with the sadness and anxiety she had felt.
Julia is a student at Rider University, majoring in multiplatform journalism with a minor in social media strategies. At school, she writes and is news editor for The Rider News and is the News Director for the radio station, producing news updates. She’ll be graduating in the spring. Connect with her on Instagram @juliatrain
