Last Fall, we had to have our 14-year-old dog put to sleep. It was such a loss; she was not doing well and we knew it was time. We became a 1-pet household. A few years ago, a friend found a stray cat underneath a tire in a parking lot, and we decided to add him to our crazy family. We welcomed Hairy Pawter into our home. We had hopes he would love to kill mice and keep our house free from those pesky critters.
Hairy has earned his keep.
I never thought of myself as a cat lover. We had a cat growing up, and she was mean. My older boys had a cat for a short time until it became ill. Both my little boys say they are cat lovers. I think they like the minimal effort taking care of them requires. My husband enjoys that part of being a cat dad.
A few weeks ago, we made a quick trip to Delaware, OH to meet our newest grandson. We would be gone less than 3 days, so I loaded Hairy up with food in our garage and away we went. While we were gone, we noticed we had not seen him in our Blink camera but thought he was just out courting the feline ladies.
When we got home, no sign of Hairy – I contacted neighbors, and they confirmed no Hairy sightings; the neighborhood consensus is that Hairy is a good cat to all and usually leaves goodies on all of our porches. I was devastated, and my worst fear was that he was dinner for one of our area’s foxes. I thought maybe – hopefully – he got caught in someone’s garage for the holiday weekend.
By Tuesday morning, I knew that he was gone. I was grieving. My husband left for a mission trip, and I had resigned myself to the fact that he was gone. The boys and I would have a backyard memorial service for him.
Then, I got a call from the neighbor – she started off the call by asking if we were missing Hairy.
She said her boyfriend heard scratching coming from their shed and he opened it – and a white cat bolted out!
It was OUR Hairy Pawter!!!!
Turns out, he had been stuck in their shed since Friday! I’m not sure what kind of magic Hairy possesses or if he used 1 of his 9 lives to get out of that situation, but I’m thankful for whatever force or lives he used, because he is home!
Turns out – we are cat people, and we are so glad our Hairy is back.
