A Sad Time in the Household

I suppose all of you can very well figure out what this blog will be referencing. If not, please let me know which rock you're under so I can climb underneath it with you and forget this for a while.

Sunday afternoon at about 2 or 3:00, I got up and took some trash outside and left the back door open for a minute like I usually do. I got finished, came back inside, and didn't see Jack for the rest of the night. I figured he was upstairs or under the futon sleeping.

Monday morning I got up and went for work. Jack always meets me at the top of the stairs when I come out of the bedroom from getting ready for work. He talks to me, follows me downstairs, gets a bit of attention, wants food, and I go off to work - usually. I went downstairs and checked his foodbowl. It was full, so I figured he was fine. Later that morning, Josh called me and said, "Jack's not here. I've taken the bag of treats all over the house, shook it, called his name - he's not anywhere in this house." He called me back later to tell me Jose and Aaron didn't recall seeing him that evening when they stopped by for a bit, either. By the time I got home Monday afternoon, he'd already been gone over 24 hours. I drove around the neighborhood stopping every 100 feet or so and calling his name. I'm sure my neighbors thought I was crazy - that's ok. I never saw him.

Yesterday at work I made the fliers you see on my profile. I made copies. By the time I got back to town, he'd been gone 48 hours. On my way home, I stopped at every business within a mile radius of the house and posted the fliers, talked to some helpful people, and made my way to the house where I changed shoes and started hoofing through the neighborhood knocking door-to-door with my fliers and taping them to the doors of those who didn't answer. Last night I got a call at 9 p.m. "I'm over here in the Food Lion parking lot and I see a cat - I can't get close to it, so I can't tell if it's yours or not . . ." I high-tailed it there just to find out it was a little black and white cat, not Jack. But these folks had stayed, waited for me to get there, to keep the cat in sight until I made it. Bless them.

This morning at 4 a.m. I got a phone call. "I just got your flier - he's out here every day playing when it's not cold outside." I thanked him for the call. I knew that wasn't Jack. The guy that called lives one building down from me. I'd been calling all over the neighborhood two nights in a row. Jack responds to his name - and he didn't come. I appreciate his helpfulness, though. On my way into work at 7 a.m., I stopped by the Humane Society and filled out a form for my missing cat. I also found out about a website, petharbor.com, that lists all the animal shelters and what-not in the area and you can search for your pet. Jack hadn't been picked up, but now they know to look for him, too.

I haven't gotten any more calls. I was expecting to as people went through the day today and came home from work. I suppose that's the way it goes sometimes, but I'm heartbroken. I think that most of you understand that my cats are my children; I've never been one to think I'd be good with human children, and I've always half-way expected my cats to be my only children . . . Now one of my kids is missing.

As the weather changes again, I'm getting more concerned. It's rained all day, and if he's outside, I know he's miserable. Tonight thunderstorms are coming through with tornado warnings. It's going to get crazy and windy out there, and he's going to be scared - unless someone picked him up, and I don't know what to do other than what I'm already doing. I'm planning on calling vets on Friday to see if someone's brought in a stray cat to be vaccinated/checked out.

BabyGirl is showing more and more signs of separation anxiety with each passing day. She doesn't know where her brother is. These two haven't spent more than an hour without one another since Jose and I rescued them from Happy Tales Humane six years ago. Normally an extremely quiet, reserved cat, she is following us around the house on our heels, talking (squeaking) almost constantly, being glommy and attaching herself to our laps as much as possible. And her eating habits have changed; she's still eating, thank goodness, but not nearly like she normally does. I'm concerned for her, too, because as it's been discussed before - BabyGirl isn't BabyGirl without Jack, and Jack isn't Jack without BabyGirl.

Everyone - thank you for your well-wishes, your thoughts, your prayers, and your help if you're assisting. I really do appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

I'll be over here, trying to push away those feelings of impending doom.