Sunday, July 21, 2013

The Triumphant Return

I can't believe this really happened, but around 6pm tonight, Mort waltzed through the back door. Before continuing, I should mention that in the last week, I had grown increasingly sure that Mort was dead. The post I'd found 13 blocks north of our house started to ring more and more true. This person had hit our cat and either taken him to an obscure vet that I hadn't called, or buried him themselves. I was never going to get a definite answer.

In the last week we've mostly had beautiful weather, but there was a dramatic thunder and lightening storm one night with torrential rain that lasted over an hour. I almost consoled myself with the idea that Mort had passed and wasn't huddled somewhere alone in that storm. Mimi has been depressed, hiding under our bed and generally moping. I was feeling so terrible for her, I mean, she's never known life without him, they slept together every night. Edie was less affected, but almost disturbingly adult about it. I overheard her say to Mimi while hugging her, "It's okay Mimi. You still have all of us." Then when Mimi went outside the other day she said to me, "But if Mimi leaves, then we're going to have NO kitties Mom." It about broke my heart.

Flash forward to tonight at 6pm.

Edie is at my parents' for the night. I was reading on the couch with the back door open and the sprinkler on in the yard. Mimi was lying on the dining room floor looking despondent when I heard another cat eating food in the kitchen. We've been having problems with raccoons breaking in through the cat door (late at night), and we've also had a tan colored neighborhood cat that's been trying (sometimes successfully) to come inside, but Mimi hisses and growls at all cats that aren't Mort (Mort is the friendly one). I looked at Mimi to assess whether this was a raccoon or the tan cat: Mimi wasn't growling.

I peeked through our living room/kitchen pass through to see if it was a scary raccoon (at which point my next course of action is to throw Legos at them through the pass-thru until they scamper out the cat door), but instead I saw a black cat's back, with his face in the cat food bowl. Even then, I was sure it was another black cat from the hood. Sure of it. I crept into the kitchen. The cat kept chowing down. Mimi wandered closer, but still didn't hiss. I finally got close enough and saw Mort's tell-tale little white patch at his throat. He was eating like, well, like maybe he hadn't eaten IN A WEEK. I quickly shut the back door and blocked the cat door before bellowing upstairs where Jeff was working, "JEFF!!! MORT IS IN OUR KITCHEN!!" He came running and cue the incredulous reunion.

Mimi spent a good 20 minutes sniffing every part of Mort while he sauntered around all, "What?"

He ate some more food and then they fell asleep together on the couch.

I still can't believe it.  WHERE HAS THIS CAT BEEN?

3 comments:

Tib said...

He was probably just using up one of his spare lives. My Aunt had a cat that went missing for three weeks and 100 miles away from home during Hurricane Andrew. Cat showed up back at home missing a few pounds but nothing else!

So glad for Mimi he is home.

Darrah said...

WOW and yay!!

Betsey said...

Hooray! I bet he had a hell of a good te gala anyone in the blissful sun, lounging about on sunny rocks and chatting up the local cats. My old cat, Odo, once took off and was gone for 6 weeks. No responses to my postings, no news at the shelters. One night around 8 pm I was sitting in the living room with the front door open and Odo came flying in at full speed, then sat down in the middle of the floor like she had been home all along. One of our cats also travelled from halfway out Chuckanut to Garden &17th (it went back to it's old home). They must need the occasional adventure.