When the cat leaves, it's all good.

For those of you just tuning in, our favorite family pet was missing for 29 days and after a massive search he was found and returned home this morning. He had spent the last two weeks at a nice family home a mile and a half from our house, heading west toward the everglades. My gratitude goes out to the man who called this morning to tell me that our cat was being well cared for at the home of one of his friends in Weston. Through the course of the 29 days I got many calls and followed up on 14 cat sightings. None were Charlie and no one on the other end of the phone sounded so certain as this man did. I hung up the phone and called my husband sobbing telling him that this was it. And when we got to the house, it was it. It was Charlie. The garage door was open and a dark shadow was sitting on top of the washing machine. I got closer and saw his form and eyes and shrieked, "Charlie!" He meowed and jumped right down and came to me. I picked him up and cried so hard that I was hyperventilating. The maid from Ecuador was chanting, "Ohhhh nina, porasita", (sp?) over and over. She brought out the picture of the kids that had adopted Charlie and they were cute and I am sure she was trying to tell me that they loved him and got attached (there was a lot lost in translation); I just wanted to take Charlie home.

What this 29 days taught me was that people are nice. People do care and they really are starving for connection just like I am. When we did get Charlie home, I called all the people that had called me to tell me they thought they had found our cat and I let them know how the story ended. They were all so happy that I called them and excited to hear a nice outcome. I even posted the word, "FOUND" over our posters in the area so everyone will know and feel good too.