When a family's 21-year-old cat passed away in March, one of the daughters thought about the three children who found a stray kitten and pleaded with her parents to take it home.

The woman wanted to thank the children, now adults, for taking pity on the abandoned feline, which gave her family more than two decades of happiness and love.

After she took to Twitter to search for the trio, she remarkably found one of them after more than 20 years. 

The twitterer, who goes by the name of Reirei (@5qwkqrwILfKftUM) and lives in Aichi Prefecture, posted the following message on June 21:

"Please RT: I want to tell a trio who appeared to be elementary school- or junior high school-aged at the time when they were looking for someone who would adopt a kitten in an area stretching from Tsushimajinja shrine to Tennogawa Koen park in Tsushima, Aichi Prefecture, in September 1998. I think you gave a middle-aged couple a light red tabby, and I want to tell you it lived 22 and a half years and died a natural death in March this year. Your gentle hearts saved a cat, and it gave my family a lot of happiness."

To be exact, the cat lived 21 and a half years.

Reirei said her parents were visiting the park from Gifu Prefecture on Sept. 13, 1998, when the trio on bicycles approached them near a pond, asking them to adopt the kitten.

Taken aback, her mother declined. But the kids persisted, begging them to take in the cat.

The children told the couple that one of them brought it home, but was told to return the kitten where they found it.

Reirei's father offered to adopt the kitten and brought it home in a box that contained a pair of shoes he bought that day.

‘IT'S CUTE’

Reirei, who was a senior high school student at that time, was at school that day, involved in after-school extracurricular activities. When she called her mother from a payphone to tell her that she would be home late, she was told that they had adopted a cat.

Reirei rushed right home.

The moment she laid eyes on it, she thought, "Oh my God, it's cute."

When she put the male kitten on a scale in the kitchen, it weighed 300 grams.

The tiny kitten moved around from room to room, trying to hide in tight spaces around the sofa and the piano, forcing Reirei to fill in every space with cardboard so that she wouldn't accidentally step on it.

When the cat threw up and had a fever, Reirei's younger sister, who was a junior high school student at the time, begged their parents to take it to an animal hospital and even said she would forego her allowance if they did.

The cat would hide when it was frightened by the noise of fireworks. Another time their pet found another cat in the garden and rushed toward his fellow feline after breaking through a screen door.

The kitten might have become attached to Reirei's mother because she always fed him; he was occasionally seen waiting for her at the entrance as he heard the sound of her car pulling up before anybody else did.

AFTER 21 AND A HALF YEARS

Twenty-one and a half years flew by. In early March this year, Reirei received a call from her mother who told her that the cat might not live through the week. He had stopped eating about half a month prior to the call, and he finally stopped drinking water.

All the family members gathered together later that weekend, surrounding the bed in which he was lying. As they talked about the memories they shared together, Reirei told the cat that he lived long enough and that it was OK to let go, caressing his head and holding him in her arms.

Two days later, she received a call from her mother in the wee hours of the morning, telling her that the cat had passed away.

Reirei posted the tweet about three months later.

UNFORGETTABLE WORDS

Her family sometimes talked about the three children who asked her parents to take in the kitten even when the feline was still alive and purring.

Reirei sent a request to a TV show called "Detective Knight Scoop," which accepts inquiries from viewers to conduct investigations and solve mysteries. But her story didn't make it on the air. 

After the cat's passing, the family talked about the children again, wondering what became of them over the years. 

Reirei posted her tweet because she wanted to tell them how much the cat was loved and had lived a long life. She also wanted to give her father a chance to see them again, considering the state of his health.

Her father once said he could never forget what they told the kitten when he agreed to take it in: "Don't be abandoned again."

When Reirei remembered this episode, she thought she, too, couldn't let them down. It was the moment she promised herself that she would prove to them that adults will keep their promises, even though some adults disappoint the expectations of children for grown-up reasons.

Reirei's sincere tweet went viral, attracting more than 50,000 retweets and 120,000 likes. Many people offered to help find the children.

‘IT COULD HAVE BEEN ME’

On July 3, 12 days after Reirei posted the tweet, a reply came from a woman who said she thought she was one of the three children. The woman provided information regarding the location, situation and other details about that day, all of which corresponded with the recollection of Reirei's parents.

The woman also sent a photo of the trio taken back then. When Reirei showed it to her parents, they confirmed it was them. 

Through her exchanges with the woman, Reirei learned how much she loves animals and was glad to see she hasn't changed from back then.

When the woman thanked Reirei for adopting the kitten, she replied: "It was loved by everyone, it lived a long life, and he was a great cat. The cat you tried to protect made our family happy. Thank you very much."