When I was a little girl, I was sure of one thing I clearly needed to be a complete kid: a dog. THE dog. One of those companions-of-a-lifetime dogs whose memory would be burned in my psyche long after the myriad adventures and lessons we would swap, one with the other. A dog to which long declarative odes and essays would be penned in effort to capture our forever bond.
Long after the nights I would spend sleeping at her side under the winking stars -- I also was quite clear the dog should be a female. Long beyond the glorious afternoons we'd share racing through grassy fields dotted with wildflowers and splashing in creeks full of darting fish. Long past the point of her death and burial near the red ferns -- having owned the beloved friend for the duration of her life from puppy hood to senior mutt. I yearned for my own scruffy Old Yeller, my own courageous Little Ann and Old Dan, my own heroic Lassie. The animals of those stories were real to me. With these depictions of emotional highs and lows, and their classic descriptions of coming of age under the tutelage of a wise four-legged teacher, came a certainty that this was how a child's life should be experienced.And, as I've written before in this blog, I did, in fact, live out my own versions of this youthful dream turned reality. My Bonnet with her babies, my Cassie the Turkey killer, my Rosie the mop . . . and presently, my arthritic gentlelady, Panda. Two parted from me too soon to other homes; one was put down before her time due to disease; and the last will hopefully fade away as she naps in the sunshine spot of her choice in our Tennessee backyard. The book lore and my deep-seated needs were matched by the actuality of ownership. My dogs most definitely filled to brimming the room in my girlish heart reserved for them.
With the onset of full-fledged adulthood, however, no such certain hopes manifested to match my canine-for-life-era-completion scenario. I felt unable or unwilling to specify a replacement. Not beast. Not man. While I engaged in romance, I did not linger in the wings awaiting my prince charming and the royal brood we would raise together . . . though he did arrive, albeit in a black Toyota truck as opposed to on a midnight stallion. And our union has produced a self-proclaimed queen and a self-soothing princess; the young prince remains in training.
If anything, the adult years resulted in a decided lack of certainty that anything could capture, much less encapsulate, the grown-up experience.
However, on Thanksgiving of 2007, a stray scrapper of an orange kitty wandered onto our property and marched right into the collective family heart. Without my consent, he inserted himself in the mascot role of my life. His often immature indoor antics, counterpointed by the confident independence he exuded out-of-doors, mirrored the duality of my existence above and beyond adolescence. Only, I didn't realize any of this until he went missing earlier this week.
In an effort to be pragmatic where this feline -- who my son and one of his pals named Fabio -- was concerned, I pounded it home to my kids that his lifestyle clearly left him open to danger and a resulting shorter lifespan. We should be prepared if ever we lost him. As he came to us an outdoor fellow, we allowed him to continue in that vein: his personality was already so deeply rooted in wayfaring, hunting, and the love of excursion. Not to mention that his dander was more manageable on a part-time basis for us allergy-challenged individuals.
For almost three years, this cat has never missed a meal of his own accord. He might show up at lunch and find no one home to fill his bowl, but he always showed up. If we failed to secure him inside for the night hours, we could be assured his eager meowing on our covered back porch would greet us in the AM. Though others in our neighborhood feed him snacks, shower him with attention, and sometimes allow him entrance into their homes, our Fabio the Kitty knows wherein his home base lies.
Until this past Monday evening when he downed his kibble and squeezed past arriving Bunco ladies to return to his meandering nighttime ministrations. Come Tuesday morning, his face was absent from the lower left pane of glass in our back door that is hopelessly smudged with his nose prints. For the next fourteen meal times, I reassured my eldest daughter and myself that he would return. Even without benefit of the ID which was attached to his second lost collar. Even though I walked my dog through the hay field across the street, skirting the treeline and searching the ground for that familiar creamsicle-colored carcass while watching the sky for circling carrion feeders. The experienced-with-loss realist in me grappled with the hopeful dreamer on a daily basis. Every morning, I awoke too early with thoughts of him immediately tripping through my mind. One very late night while praying, I began to cry as I recalled every trifling and amusing aspect of this animal who so often annoyed me as much as charmed me. It bothered me, somewhat, that one so acquainted with loss could be bothered by the disappearance of a cat. Hadn't I prepared myself for that eventuality?
Online, I posted status updates of his continued no-show on Facebook, created a 'missing' ad on Craig's List, and disseminated e-mail alerts. My sister-in-law who lives across town texted or e-mailed each day, along with my mother-in-law in Colorado, to express concern and query after him. I trolled the local animal shelter; I called out for him during my morning constitutionals. And in a typical gesture of last hope, my daughter and I created a flyer to inundate local mailboxes. If I could have secured a spot on a milk carton, he'd have been there, too!
So yesterday morning, with the help of my son and my very loyal friend and neighbor, Betsy, we dispersed every last one of 150 flyers in the vicinity of Fabio's territory. We even had a possible sighting which proved fruitless but rather entertaining courtesy of the small boy who tried to aid in our search. We ran out before a full canvass could be completed. The very last paper in my possession was deposited in the newspaper niche of a house where I knew the owner had five or six cats of her own roaming her yard; I passed up six other houses on her block, guessing that a fellow owner would probably pay more attention to the MISSING ORANGE CAT heading shouting up at her. For the purposes of knowing the back story -- because I'm a beginning, MIDDLE, and end sort of gal -- this would prove a smartly tactical move on my part.
In the late afternoon hours, while I snapped pictures of my husband's fellow EmDeon employees playing a beanbag game called Cornhole (oh, how I detest that name) on our back lawn, with their wives and children milling about in the fading light, my iPhone rang with an unfamiliar number. I missed the call. But I sure did get the message! In a detailed recording, the fellow feline owner on the aforementioned corner lot that I pass on my dog's mile walk almost every day, proceeded to regale me with the joyous tail, er, TALE, of finding Fabio in a roundabout way.
The long and short of it is this: it appears our highly curious cat (curiosity did WHAT, exactly, to the cat?) followed a TV cable guy under the house of this woman's neighbor. Unbeknownst to the repairman, our sneaky fellow was left behind when the access door was shut and locked. For five days, the underbelly of a stranger's home was Fabio's sensory deprivation pit. As I've not yet spoken with the people, I'm not sure if they were out of town last week or his plaintive cries were simply muffled by excellent insulation. But for whatever reason, the homeowners happened upon him yesterday and walked over to ask if he belonged to the woman with multiple cats of her own. Having checked her mail earlier that day, the story of Fabio's dilemma, not to mention the image of his countenance, was fresh in her mind. She quickly called me to alleviate my concern. Knowing cats as she does, and having seen him at her place many times over the years, she knew he would now return home. They fed and watered him and sent him on his way.
Twenty long minutes after that phone call, an orange and white blur streaked through my kitchen and straight to the pantry. A series of pitiful yowls broke through the noise of the potluck party. I scooped that slightly slenderized version of the Valdez mouser into my arms and nuzzled him whilst crooning my own series of pitiful words. Because he was the topic of ongoing conversation with various cat-loving guests throughout the day, his arrival was a triumph for the entire cast of computer engineers and their families. Fabio's return was the post-dessert entertainment. And the bestest early 41st birthday present a girl could ever ask for!
I couldn't be any happier in this stolen moment of unspoken adulthood need. That wee space reserved for an ornery orange tomcat with a propensity for trouble and charisma in equal measures? TAKEN! Thank you very much.
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