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How Harry Styles' mom miraculously reunited with her cat who went missing for two years

"I have no idea where she has been for the past two years."

Representative photo credit: Canva

Microchipping your cat is one of the best ways to ensure you can find each other if they get lost.

When a pet goes missing, it's a worrisome time for any pet owner. Having no idea where they are, if they're okay, if they're even alive—so many worst case scenarios can cross your mind on top of simply missing them. Many animals are found fairly quickly, as neighbors discover a stray cat or dog at their door, but on rare occasions pets are found after being missing for months or even years.

That's what happened to children's author Anne Twist—who also happens to be the mother of pop star Harry Styles—when a shelter contacted her saying they had her cat. Her black-and-white floof Evie had been missing for two years, but someone had taken her in a few days before.

Twist wrote:

"The most incredible thing happened today .. I got my little Evie back! Two years ago she went out and never came back. After months spent searching I was resigned to having lost her. 😞

"Last night I got a phone call .. a little rescue centre @willowsway_cat_rescue had her! She’d been taken in by a lovely lady who had fed her for a couple of days in her greenhouse. Although I have no idea where she has been for the past two years I am immensely grateful to have her home🙏 From June last year it became the law to have your cats microchipped .. something I have always done since I started having them in my life … keep your details updated, miracles can happen. 🥰"

Surely Evie was happy to be back home after her two year adventure, wherever she was, as well.

The law Twist is referring to is in the U.K. "With more than 9 million pet cats in England, the introduction of mandatory microchipping will make it easier for lost or stray pet cats to be reunited with their owners and returned home safely," says the U.K. government website. "Microchipping is already compulsory for dogs and is proven to be the most effective method for identifying lost pets, with microchipped dogs more than twice as likely to be reunited with their owner."

What does microchipping a cat mean?

Vets can insert a microchip, about the size of a grain of rice, under the skin of a cat or dog on the back of its neck. The microchip contains a unique identification number that matches up with the owner's contact information in a database. It's not a GPS tracker and doesn't actively transmit any information, but the ID number can be read from the chip with a special scanner. Microchips are painless for the animal but super helpful for rescues and shelters to find owners when they find a pet that has one.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Aren't cats good at finding their way home?

Cats are actually quite adept at getting themselves home after they've wandered. We don't fully know how they do it, but there is some evidence that cats use a combination of scent cues and the earth’s geomagnetic fields to locate their homes. It's called a homing instinct, and scientists figured out the geomagnetic field element in 1954 when they put magnets on cats, which seemed to make it harder for them to find their way home.

Cats have been known to even find their way home from dozens of miles away, though most missing cats are found within a few miles of home. When a cat comes back after going missing for years, it's likely someone took them in during that time, though who knows for sure? It's not like Evie can tell Anne Twist what she's been doing for the past two years, and its unlikely she was on tour like her big brother (wouldn't that be quite a show). But Twist is happy to have her back, regardless of what she's been up to.

Congrats on your reunion, you two. And thanks for the example of why microchipping our beloved pets is so important.

reunion
Identity

Harry Styles stops in the middle of concert to help a fan come out

Fans have been using his shows to come out since 2018.

commons.wikimedia.org

Harry Styles makes his concerts safe spaces to come out.

Coming out can be an emotionally fraught process. Even when you're secure in your queerness, there's still a sense of fear and hesitation. Because it's so emotional, people sometimes choose an unconventional way to do it. That includes coming out in an unlikely place … like a Harry Styles concert. Yes, this has happened more than once.

Most recently, a fan of Styles used the singer's help to come out as gay during the Love On Tour 2022 stop at London's Wembley Stadium.

In a clip posted to Twitter, Styles picks up a cardboard sign that had been thrown onto the stage.

"From Ono to Wembley: help me come out," the sign reads.

"So you would like the people of Wembley to bring you out?" Styles asks, a smile on his face. You can tell he's done this before, and that he's genuinely excited to do it again.

"When this sign," he begins, but returns the sign to the fan and picks up a Pride flag.

"When this flag goes over my head, you're officially gay, my boy," he says with a proud smile on his face. Of course, the crowd begins to cheer.

Styles runs back and forth waving the flag, but hesitates before raising it over his head, joking, "still straight!" before he continues to run. Then he stops, raises the flag in the air while throwing his head back triumphantly.

"Congratulations, Mattia, you are a free man!" Styles screams as the crowd roars.

Styles then takes another minute to revel in what has just happened. It's obvious he takes his role of helping fans come out seriously. There's a level of trust and care between Styles and his fans underpinning what everyone has just witnessed.

Being in the audience of a Harry Styles concert when a fan comes out is both intimate and big. People make the choice to do it knowing their declaration will become a YouTube video or news article by the next morning, and that never seems to scare them. It seems that there's something liberating about coming out to thousands of strangers.

As a longtime Harry Styles fan, I've seen this happen in real life. During the Los Angeles dates of Love On Tour 2021, I attended two shows where fans used the concert as an opportunity to come out. Styles asked each fan if they had an item they wanted him to hold to signal their official outing. He then ran around the stage building the anticipation until the glorious moment the item was lifted over his head and the crowd erupted. It was an honor to be part of such a life-changing moment.

Styles isn't a stranger to helping his fans come out during one of his concerts. In 2018, during a tour stop in San Jose, California, Styles helped another fan come out.

"I'm going to come out to my parents because of you," says the sign Styles reads to the audience. Although the parents weren't in attendance (they were in a nearby hotel), Styles still took the opportunity to help.

"I'm going to tell Tina before you get a chance to," he said.

"Tina, she's gay!" he yells, before telling the young woman that her mom "says" that she loves her. The video has become a bit of an inside joke among fans, but proves that he has always been willing to provide a safe space for his fans.

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Upworthy Weekly podcast: Harry Styles' teacher, optimistic women live longer, jam of the summer

What are Alison Rosen and Tod Perry talking about this week? Optimistic people live longer, George Lucas’ thoughts on happiness and Victoria’s real secret. Listen and subscribe today!

Upworthy Weekly podcast for June 18, 2022

In an episode that's filled with self-help advice, Alison and Tod learn that people who have a positive outlook tend to live longer. They also examine “Star Wars” creator George Lucas' thoughts on happiness.

Plus, a songwriter named Jax has written the "jam of the summer” that reveals Victoria's secret and Tod’s mind is blown by avocado toast.

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Pop Culture

Harry Styles heard his 'first teacher' was in the audience, so he stopped a show to find her

She taught him when he was 4.

via Wikimedia Commons

Harry Styles in 2013.

The impact teachers have on our lives lasts a lifetime. Even though most schoolteachers instruct countless children throughout their careers, they remember how the students affected their lives, too. A perfect example of this is the exchange between pop megastar Harry Styles and his first teacher from primary school on June 15.

Between songs at his concert at Emirates Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Styles stopped the show to find someone in the audience. It was no easy task, there were 74,000 people at the show.

"I'm going to ask a favor from you because I'd like to try and find someone in the audience," he said, according to CBS News. It was his “first-ever schoolteacher” Ann Vernon. The gig was a homecoming for Styles, who grew up in nearby Cheshire, and he was told that some of his former schoolteachers may be in attendance.

Styles scanned the massive crowd for Vernon until he saw someone he thought was her. Unfortunately, it was her colleague, Mrs. Bailey.

"How are you? I heard you're retiring,” he called out to the person he thought was Vernon. “I'd just like to thank you for everything in those formative years. And yeah, thank you so much, it means a lot to me that you're here tonight."

"Can you imagine dealing with me when I was 4?" Styles joked. He then dedicated his next song, “Canyon Moon,” to his former teacher.

Even though Vernon wasn’t at the gig, she got Styles' touching message. Bailey called her and shared a clip of the exchange. After the concert, Vernon appeared on "The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show" on BBC Radio 2 to talk about what it was like teaching young Styles.

"As a teacher, you remember all of the children that you've taught, all of them are amazing in their own way," Vernon said. “Harry obviously has gone on to mega, mega things—everybody at Hermitage is just so, so proud of him." She recalled that he was a “delight” and that he had “a cheeky sparkle in his eye, he was a little bit of a tinker some of the time but he was a character so that's for sure, we all remember him.”

A big part of Styles' appeal is that he’s a nice guy who will "take a walk on a Sunday through the afternoon" with you. Some might have thought that it’s just an image he’s trying to sell the world, but it’s pretty easy to believe it’s true after seeing him stop a show to salute one of his teachers.

He was also gracious to his audience whom he thanked for coming to a show near where he grew up.

“This is an absolute pleasure to be here at my home show, I cannot begin to tell you how much it means to me to play here tonight and all of you for coming,” he said, according to Yahoo News UK.

“Some of the happiest times of my entire life have been making these last couple of albums, and some of the happiest times of my life have been right around the corner from here. So it feels pretty perfect to me playing these songs to you here tonight,” he added.

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