Please Come Back Cat

This is our baby girl, Lilli. We love her very much, as any other pet-owner can relate. She has been missing from inside our warm, dry, protected, loving walls since last Wednesday. We have spent many many hours looking for her.
Animals were made for the outdoors. And she so desperately wanted to be outside. We kept her in the safety of our home as long as we could. But I always felt that we were doing her a great injustice. She was made to be outside, and she knew it! It's one thing if the animal does not want to go outside, it's another thing when it tries to run out each time the door opens. That was our Lilli. But we were so nervous to let her out.

Finally this year we decided that if she wanted to go out so badly, it might be safer to let her out when we were outside with her and could keep an eye on her. We thought that if we gave her some freedom and cared for her well, then she would be happy to go every-so-often and wouldn't escape and run away. This had been working until last week.

We figure she snuck (I know that is not a word) out of the house Wednesday morning, maybe when Nathan was leaving for work. She normally stays in our front garden, but I got called out of the house and when I came back I noticed she was gone. I also noticed that the maintenance people had been working on the grass etc. all day and all we can figure is that they scared her off.

We have done all kinds of things: made posters and put them up all over the neighborhood, called the shelters, called the city, put out kitty litter (it has her scent on it). I have even spent two nights searching in the quiet, wee hours of the morning (3-5am). All of these in vain.

So our baby is gone, for now. And we remember she is gone when no one is there to greet us at the door when we come in, or perch herself on the window ledge to say "good bye". We open our yogurt and no one comes running. I climb the stairs with nothing attacking my ankles. And no one is sleeping at the foot of our beds.

We are sad. We don't know why she ran off or what has happened to her.

But we know this: God loves His creation. God cares for His creation. God will bring good things from this. We have hope. We always have hope.