Be oh-so careful if you decide to bring a pet to a storm shelter.
I made a rash decision on the night of May 12. Storm sirens began to wail as vicious winds howled louder. I grabbed my calico cat, Lucy, and brought her to the car so I could drive to the storm shelter in this mobile-home park. I planned to go back to the house and grab Tiny, the other cat.
I opened the car door. Lucy thrashed about, gashed my left forefinger, jumped down and ran into the night. Tiny would have to stay home. Off to the shelter I went, quite certain when I got back Lucy would be on the deck.
Nope. Nowhere to be seen. A sinking, desolate feeling overcame me, made worse by crashing waves of guilt. All my fault! I should have at least rushed to the shed to get a cat carrier, then put her in the carrier in the house before going to the car.
Next-door neighbors Richard and Martha Dubbin were devastated. Their cat, Sugar, is Lucy’s “sister.” Ten years ago, both were stray kittens walking like lost little lions through our yards when we decided to keep them.
Neighbors used flashlights, wandering through wet grass, hoping to spot Lucy. Nothing. Next morning, the search began again. No luck.
On the morning of the third day, I walked into the kitchen and saw Tiny with her paws on a windowsill, her ears straight up, her face peering intensely out the window.
She must see Lucy outside, I thought with a sudden rhapsody of hope. I looked out the window and saw – a pig! A very BIG pig.
My jaw dropped. “No, Tiny,” I said. “That ain’t Lucy.”
The critter resembled a giant boar. It was chewing on ferns at the edge of my fountain garden.
Was this some kind of morning hallucination?! This is a neighborhood, not a farmyard. Looking out the west windows, I spied three smallish dogs romping, running in circles. I was hoping a cat, one named Lucy, would join the fun.
Just then I saw the frolicking dogs act startled. They started running fast across the vacant lot to the north, followed by the pig in hot pursuit. And let me tell you, that porker could run!
The next two days were unbearable. I did constant chores in an effort to take my tormented mind off of what terrible fate might have befallen Lucy.
Next day, a neighbor woman across the way at least solved the pig mystery. She knows a man who owns a pig, and he sometimes lets a family in this park “piggy-sit” it when the man takes a vacation.
Relatives posted Lucy’s photo on Facebook with contact information. I taped her photo up in the park. No calls. Hopes dwindled.
Martha insisted that cat will come home when I least expect it. She prayed every night to her late mother Joretta (who cherished animals), to God and to St. Francis, asking for Lucy’s return.
On the fourth afternoon, I was painting my deck when something moved under the deck beyond the lattice. I squinted, peering closer as my heart nearly stopped.
“Lucy’s back!” I shouted to Martha in her yard; she let out a whoop of joy, then hurried over with a can of tuna. In the house I put on a pair of oven mitts as Martha lured Lucy from under the deck. Then I pounced, grabbed her and hustled her into the house. Home Sweet Home.
Please, dear readers: Always move cats inside a cat carrier during a storm or they’ll freak out and run off. I learned that lesson the hard way.
Lucy was a gentle, sweet, happy cat, though leery of strangers, just like “sister” Sugar. I’m happy to report that Lucy, now back home, is still a gentle, sweet, happy cat – more than ever.
