I posted here a bit over a year ago when I lost my cat Othello (the one in my avatar) to an unidentifiable illness. We have another cat, Desdemona, and I wanted to post an encouraging story for anyone who is dealing with a missing pet.
When I got home from work last Wednesday, I couldn’t find Desdemona – I was searching all over the house and in the basement and she wasn’t anywhere. My husband, Ben, started helping me, and he thought to look at the living room screen because I'd had the window open the night before and he thought she may have put a hole in it and escaped. There was no hole there, but I also had the bedroom window open, so he checked that one. There was NO screen in it at all! We’d had the air conditioner in that window and we had forgotten to put the screen back in. Somehow I didn't even notice this when I had opened it. Ben had closed the window when he came to bed Tuesday night, so sometime before that, Desdemona must have jumped out! He stuck his head out the window and looked around and saw her right away. She was huddled up in a corner behind a bush next to the porch for the other half of our duplex. We went out and picked her up and brought her back in, and she was terrified! As soon as she got in she went and ate (she was probably starved after being outside with nothing to eat for 14 hours!), used her litterbox, and started giving herself a bath. I feel so stupid for not noticing that there was no screen in the window, but I am so grateful to God that nothing happened to her! She could have been hit by a car or could have gotten into a fight with another animal, but she stayed close to the house and was perfectly safe. One of my recurring nightmares is that Desdemona will get outside somehow and that she won’t let us pick her up to bring her in. It was so awful to experience in reality, but she was such a good girl because she let us pick her up and bring her in with only minimal clawing.
I am sending good thoughts for similar miracles to everyone here who has lost their pet recently. When I thought I had lost her, I felt like my life was over. We've become so close since Othello's death, and I just couldn't bear to lose her, especially so soon after losing Othello.