Now I’m a Believer

Posted by Cynical Sarah on June 24, 2006

I’m now a believer – there is a Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy really does give you money for your teeth and miracles do happen. Ok, the first two are a stretch, but just this past week, I experienced my own little miracle.

About nine months ago my cat went missing. She’s been an indoor/outdoor cat the whole time I’ve had her. When we moved out here to Vancouver, I tried keeping her indoors only, but I’m a sucker and gave in to her apparent “need” for fresh air and the outdoor life.

One day she went out and didn’t come back that night. I wasn’t too worried at first. I figured she’d be meowing at the patio door the next morning. Even when that didn’t happen I wasn’t super concerned at first. Back in South Dakota, she liked to take mini-vacations once in a while where she’d be gone for a week or a little more.

My husband and I did start looking around the neighbourhood for her after a few days though. Time passed with no luck. We put up posters throughout the neighbourhood, made calls to the SPCA to listen to their found animal list, and contacted all sorts of animal rescue groups and vets in the area in case she’d been picked up and taken somewhere.

It really is crazy the extent to which a person will go to find a lost pet. People who don’t have pets can’t understand how a cat or dog can become a member of the family that way. They become your “babies” and even my mom has referred to the cat as her “grandkid.”

So our “baby” was lost and after a few months we decided she probably wasn’t going to come back. Either she’d become coyote food or someone found her and decided to keep her. I hoped it was the latter option, of course, even if it pissed me off that someone would take in my cat, who had a collar with our address and phone number, and just keep her.

Eventually we got a new kitten. She’s a holy terror and a lot of fun at the same time. At first I said, “If Pretty Kitty comes back, then they’ll just be buddies.” Then as more time passed, I gave up the idea of her coming back altogether.

It was a strange fluke really that I happened to check a lost and found list online last week and see an ad for a grey and white fluffy cat that was found. It was sort of in our area, so I opened up the ad to see what it said. The ad described a male cat, but for some reason, I emailed the guy anyway just to be sure it wasn’t our cat.

I’m sure my husband and our friends think I’m crazy for even thinking it was worth a try. It had been nine months and this guy thought he had a male cat, not female, so why in the world would I even think to just check with the guy in case it’s her?

This is where the miracle part comes in. Or perhaps it was a weird psychic premonition. Who knows. I didn’t even tell my husband when I e-mailed the guy. I didn’t want him to think I was crazy, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up either.

It turned into one of those dream-like experiences. The guy and I traded e-mails where I described my cat, and answered some questions he had about her, and finally we traded pictures to see if we were talking about the same cat. If it wasn’t her, it was the closest thing to a clone of her there is.

For months after she first went missing, I would dream that she had come home or that we’d found her. I’d wake up at night thinking I heard her meowing at the door. So now I keep waiting for something to wake me up, and I’ll find out it’s all been a dream again.

She’s been home for two days now though and so far, nothing’s woken me up. Every morning she’s still here. It’s been a little interesting having her home too because she and the new cat aren’t exactly best friends yet.

Basically, we now live in a Kitty Cold War Zone. There’s no all-out fighting, but they hiss and growl at each other and do a lot of mean posturing trying to establish dominance. Hopefully they’ll get their issues worked out before I have to start worrying about stockpiles of nuclear missiles and a build-up of barriers throughout our condo.

- Sarah L. Polson

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