Heart Broken Options

[JackieMc]

My three year old cat, Banjo, has been missing for a few days now and I just feel in my heart that he's gone. He's never been away from home for more than hour or so before. Usually when he's outside, he's just on our front lawn so he'd never voluntarily stay away this long unless something was terribly wrong. We've been all through the neighbourhood looking for him, put up signs, called the shelter, etc. But, it's as if he vanished into thin air.

And I'm not coping very well. I love him so much and I'm so scared, thinking of what may have happened to him. Yesterday I stayed home from work and cried most all day (when I wasn't outside, hoarse from calling his name). Today I came to work but I've still spent most of the day in my office with my door closed, crying. Most of my co-workers think I'm insane, although I do have a few fellow pet-lovers who have been supportive.

My husband and children are sad too but they seem to be doing better than I am. I'm so relieved to have found this board as, right now, I don't know how I am going to get through this. Thank you for listening.

[JackieMc]

Thank you so much for your message, Patti, and all the others thoughtful posts as well. My husband was talking to some other neighbours today (who live in our subdivision but not on our street). They told him Banjo is now the third cat to go 'missing' in our neighbourhood in the past few weeks. We've had this happen before (i.e. a spurt of cats missing) and it's always assumed to be a predator who's in the area. (We live in a rural area.) So, while I may never know for certain, I am feeling that this is what happened to Banjo. Because of this risk, I always called him and Fiddle in at night before bed. However, in the past few weeks, Fiddle had started meowing between 3:30 and 4:00 am to go outside. I had become lazy in my diligence and starting letting them out then. (Banjo was never the one that asked to go out at that time of the morning but he would usually get up and go along with Fiddle.) I somehow talked myself into thinking that was almost morning anyway so the nighttime predators would be moved on.

On this past Wednesday morning, Fiddle again cried to go out about 3:45 am. I let him out and Banjo remained sleeping in his usual spot. I had even closed the front door and then Banjo got up and decided he would go out as well. So, in my usual routine, I picked him up, hugged and kissed him and then let him out. (Oh how I wish he'd just waited five more seconds to decide to go out, as I probably would have been back in bed.) We get up at 6:00 am to start the day and I went to the front door to let the cats in for breakfast. Fiddle was there but Banjo wasn't. Immediately, I had a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach, as I just knew something was wrong. Of course, I've replayed the whole scene a million times in my head. If only I hadn't started indulging Fiddle's desire to go out at 3:45 am....if only I hadn't let Banjo out when he was clearly indecisive about going that morning anyway....if only I'd slept with my bedroom window open as I may have heard whatever commotion likely ensued and been able to get up and help him. But all the "if onlys" in the world won't bring him back now. I tried to be a good Mommy to him but I can't help thinking that, in the end, I failed him. One of the first things that helped me when I found this site on Thursday was to read that others have had these same feelings. I kept feeling like such a bad, bad person but I now see that others have also gone through this.

Well - this is really getting long but perhaps it is helpful for me to write and get some things out. As for a description of Banjo....he is a pure white, short haired cat. He had a little spot of grey on top of his head when he was a kitten but that eventually disappeared. He was a very "typical" cat in that he could seem standoffish, particularly to those he didn't know, but was very loving with us. I was often told that he had a regal air about him. Our house is at the top of a hill and Banjo's fav place to sit was on top of one of our cars. As a result, it appeared that he was watching down over his "kingdom" and many neighbours would comment he seemed to be watching us all to ensure our actions met with his approval! He loved being outside. He was a good mouse hunter and also sometimes caught birds. He would bring his gifts to the front door for us. I'm at work writing this so I don't have a picture on this computer that I can post. Right now looking at pictures of him is hard for me but maybe I will work up the courage to post one someday when I'm logged in from home.

If anybody made it this far through my long post, I just want to say again that this site and, in particular, the people who post here have helped me tremendously over the past few nightmarish days. I have gained a lot of strength from all the people who have responded to my Banjo story and I've also learnt a lot from reading all of your stories about our precious pets.