The prodigal cat comes home

The first time I met Winston, I didn’t.

Winston is a cat, a large long haired black and white cat who came to live with my daughter, her spouse and their boys.

He had been living as a rescue with another family but the senior cat in residence there had cat questions about the intrusion on her territory and Winston had to go…somewhere.

A call went out and Emily said, “My boys have been begging me for a cat, so we will take him.”

Winston spent the first month at his new home under the bed, coming out at night to do cat things in the dark.

It took him several months to trust his new family and to make the odd daylight appearance.

To say that it took a while for Winston to warm up to his new family would be an understatement, for whatever had happened to him in his previous lives, he was more than shy, more than standoffish, most probably wary of human contact. But time and gentle attention won him over and he found solace in the beds of his adopted family, coming out at night to sleep with them, sometimes appearing during the daylight hours to head for another secure place, the basement.

Winston’s life revolved around his hiding places under beds and in the basement except when you might find him sitting in front of the slider that overlooks the back yard.

If one could interpret his statuesque position in front of the door and the chirping like noises he made, he was yearning for the great outdoors and the marvelous cat things that can happen there.

My motherly advice to my daughter, given in another room because my appearance, even the sound of my voice would send Winston into hiding,  was to keep him inside.  “Outdoor cats wander. They become prey to larger animals and besides you live on a busy street.” Daughter seemed to heed my advice until she didn’t.

“Winston bolts out the door whenever he gets a chance.He seems to love it outside. I’ve had him chipped so if he wanders off and someone finds him,  a vet can find out how to get him home.  Besides, he just goes out and hides under the neighbor’s porch. He meets me when I come home from work and comes in then.”

It was settled, Winston would be a daylight outdoor cat.

Thus it was on Thanksgiving day that Winston had left the house early to hide under the neighbor’s porch while we feasted inside.

When it started to get dark, daughter went to the back door and shook the Yummy box to call him in.  No Winston.

We all assumed that he was hiding because of all of the foreigners inside.

He didn’t come in after we left, nor when they called me at 10 p.m. or the next morning.  Winston was AWOL.

He didn’t come home on Friday or Saturday or Sunday.

Daughter posted a picture on Facebook asking for help in finding Winston.  Over two thousand people viewed that posting.

Actual people went out and looked for the missing feline. But, no Winston.

His “grandmother” was worried and took that worry to bed with her for two more or less sleepless nights.

Was he trapped in someone’s garage, tool shed? Was he injured and couldn’t get home? Did he run off with some floozy female cat?  She could feel the anxiety of her child and child’s offspring 36 miles away.

What goes on in the mind of a shy neutered male cat anyway?

On Tuesday night, while daughter and son-in-law were chattingin their dining room,  daughter and son-in-law whose ears were now on high alert said, “Did you hear meows?” and jumped up to find Winston sitting by the slider asking to come in.

Joy in Cazenovia.

Winston came home. Daughter posted on Facebook and texted her family. You could feel the joy, the relief.  The prodigal son had come home.

What was the lesson?

Is there a lesson, beyond listen to your mother, she’s been around a long time?

There are several. First, our pets are family. They engender loving, caring connections between souls with different missions on this earth.

They have their faults, but these pale in comparison with the humdingers that we humans have.

When was the last time that your pet spread hurtful gossip?

But there is another lesson here.

The response to my daughter’s plea for help was instantaneous and heartfelt.  So many connected with the pain and anxiety of Winston’s disappearance.

It makes me ask how we can connect all of us around those things we value, we cherish, we love, instead of drawing political lines in the sand.

My daughter spoke in words understood and responded to in loving ways.

We need to do more talking with one another instead of isolating ourselves in our belief systems and never coming to understand that most of those we include in “we” are loving, kind and caring people who may disagree about process but still share so much about basic human values.