Not that I want to dogpile on AA, but I am also going to come down firmly on the side of LW keeping the cat.

I suffer from a mental illness, and there is the possibility that at some point it will incapacitate me to the point where I won't be able to care for my cats. If I needed a temporary foster, you can bet your ass I would want visitation and updates and would pay for as much as possible, even if I could barely drag myself out of bed.

If weren't able to do that, and emerged a year later and found my cats, who I love as though they are my children, had bonded with their carer and were happy in their home? I would be heartbroken, I would cry endlessly, but I would not force my cats to come live with me and disrupt their lives again. And this is from me as an excellent cat owner. I wouldn't even think twice about it if I couldn't take care of them.

LW has cared for this cat for a year, has bonded, and her friend has shown little to no interest in this cat during the care situation. In this situation, it is not LW who must be the adult - she has been the adult this entire year - it is the friend. Even if she suffers from a terrible mental illness.

I know and understand that cats are not human children, but nobody would ever dream of giving a child back to someone who had shown no interest and suddenly wanted the kid back for their own reasons. No, you would consider all of the parties involved, weighted heavily towards the kid, who has the least power.
This is the same thought pattern that one should give to any living creature. A cat isn't a photo album or a beloved family heirloom. A cat is a living creature with the capacity to feel pain and shouldn't be treated like some trinket that can be stored away and picked up at leisure.

Friend is a human being with the intelligence and capacity to understand and work through the discomfort that would come from not having this cat.
Kitty does not have the capacity to understand and adequately cope with being shunted from a loving home to an, at best, neglectful one.
LW would have to cope with both the pain of losing Kitty, and the worry that would come from giving away the cat to a less capable owner.

Take it down to simple math if you want. If Friend gets kitty, LW and Kitty both suffer. If LW keeps kitty, only Friend suffers. Perhaps Friend's pain is magnified because of mental illness - I don't believe it is enough to tip the scale. Being sick should come with some accommodations, absolutely. Being sick doesn't mean you can be coddled out of being a responsible adult.

Frankly, in this situation, I cannot imagine any good reason for LW to give up the cat.

Hello yes this is a portrait of me in the future

This is my goal

This piece rang a bell inside me that I've been trying not to listen to.

I am a monolingual daughter of extremely mixed heritage. My paternal grandparents spoke eight languages between them - my living grandfather speaks two fluently. My maternal grandparents spoke at least three, and my mother speaks (now broken) Afrikaans alongside her English.
I am so sad that myself and the other descendants of my grandparents didn't give us the gift of another language. I'm sad at the reasons they may have had for not passing it on - the need to assimilate inside of a racist country, the desire to have their children really 'belong' in their chosen home, the difficulty in keeping up a language when surrounded by another... I don't know.
I've tried and failed to learn languages before, so I am not hopeful I will ever be more than monolingual, and I am not sure how I feel about that.

I was going to comment on this stuff!

If you've only just adopted her, it will take some time for you all to speak the same language, so to speak. Soon you'll be able tell the difference between her 'I'M SO SAD' yelling, her 'MOTHER! COME POSTHASTE!' yelling, and her 'I'M SCREAMING BECAUSE I LIKE THE SOUND OF MY OWN VOICE COME PLAY WITH ME' yelling.

So, she may be sad and worried - possibly more likely since she's so new - but it may very well also just be that she has a good set of lungs to work out, or she wants to play, or she's trying to kickstart communication by screaming about the moonlight that's filtering through the gap in the window.

Give her some comfort if you're worried, talk to her, and shush her if you need to.

I understand, but... this is the first place I've started to feel like I'm home. I'm really sad. I'll miss you, Toast.

I did not, and this is the best news I have ever heard in the history of forever.

Endless sympathies to leaping_rabbit and her ipad screen (ho boy I get it) but I really wanted to thank you for the awesomely sweet mental image of internet hugs bouncing along the floor. I made a literal, in-the-flesh sound of joy.

I'm not saying I'd want to open up my relationship simply so that I can snuggle-nap with someone because my husband hates naps, but I'm not NOT saying it...

Well THANKS, I didn't have a crush on him BEFORE but NOW you've got me thinking all this weird and believable stuff and DAMNIT I don't need another crush damnit damnit.

Wings, though. How did you know?!

I found it on youtube first and it looked so fun, and it's actually even more fun than that. As long as you're comfortable with losses, you can have the greatest time even on a big losing streak. (At least in my server area, OCE, the people are awesome too! And when they're not, it is most satisfying to demolish them.)

I highly recommend giving it a go, but definitely use a controller if you can.