One fateful day, while I was at work dressed as a penguin, with glitter and a big ol’ grin pasted across my face (they let us wear costumes for Halloween, it was the best), my mom let my cat out to explore our backyard, thinking it was all good since I had recently given the okay for Penny going outdoors alone with no supervision. 

However, she let her out at about 4pm. I had apparently not communicated that I didn’t want my cat being let out that late, in case she ran off somewhere right as it was getting dark. 

So I came home in my penguin costume, with tons of glitter still stuck to my face, super happy about my day, and come to find out: my cat is still outside, and the Halloween sun is already almost set. 

Of course I feel concerned, and explain why I’m bothered by the fact that they let my cat out so late in the day, near the time it would be getting dark, before rushing downstairs to change. 

When I finish getting out of my costume, I immediately go outside and look for Penny. I search around the yard like I usually do, calling her name and looking for her in her usual favorite spots, but I can’t find her anywhere. I go back down the concrete stairs to the “front” door of my studio apartment (it goes out to the backyard) and make sure the door’s open so she can come inside—whenever she chooses to come back. 

After waiting for a while, I search for her and call her name again. Nothing. Not even the sound of the little bell on her collar. She usually would always come running by this point, and now the light was dim enough that it was getting hard to see.

It had to be on Halloween.

Anxiety was quickly escalating to panic. My family and I went out again and called her name, and my dad searched the creek several times. 

No Penny. 

I tried to calm myself down, tell myself she would come back. But I found I couldn’t enjoy watching Halloween cartoons with my family. Even the candy was just a distraction. All I could think about was Penny. 

As the darkness fell outside, I felt dark inside too. Despair and hopelessness and grief settled in so fast it was hard to continue searching. I kept asking, “Penny, where are you?” aloud to myself as I called her name over and over until I couldn’t anymore. I prayed aloud and in my heart that we’d be able to find her.

It felt like I was never going to see Penny again. All my happy memories I had created with her suddenly became incredibly painful. I looked at her scratching posts, and images of her happily scrambling all over them as a kitten flashed through my mind. I remembered the sound of her paws scuffling against the glass of the basement window, and how she would nap on her little cat perch we’d built by that window, stretching out contentedly across the aqua blanket from when I first brought her home.

I’d moved it up there and gotten her a different blanket for inside her kennel, because it had been mistakenly put through the dryer and that had turned the blanket all spongy and weird. Despite its changed texture, she still loved that blanket.

None of my family could really fully enjoy Halloween. As time passed, we all got increasingly worried. I started crying and absolutely falling apart.

I left my door open until it was late into the night, and my room had become practically frigid. I stared at my computer, typing away and looking at random things on the internet as my hands started going numb.

Eventually, my mom came downstairs and told me I should probably close my door now and go to sleep. I felt horrible, and wished I could leave it open all night, just in case.

I finally got up and walked over and slowly closed the door, mumbling something like, “I’m sorry, Penny.” 

That night, I couldn’t sleep at all. I kept thinking I heard Penny at the door, or at the window. I even got out of bed and went over to the door and opened it again, looking out into the darkness and hoping to hear her little bell or meow, or see her perched at the top of the steps, but all I saw was her litter box which we’d put out for her to guide her home (a kind neighbor had suggested it earlier when we were out walking around searching for Penny in the neighborhood), and the porch light left on. 

All I could hear was the soft whistling of the wind and our chimes that almost sounded like her bell.
It was so cold out there. So dark. And I was so sad. 

I had to call in for work the next morning because not only was I super sleep deprived the next day, but I also felt totally sick, I hurt all over and my stomach felt unsettled and I had a dull headache. I was extremely depressed and sluggish and cried all day.

My mom felt bad about the whole thing and kind of blamed herself, since she was the one who had let Penny out while I was gone. But it wasn’t her fault because it could have happened at any time. It just ended up happening on Halloween, right after I had already had a rough past weekend. The timing of it was, from my perspective, the absolute worst. 

My incredible parents put everything into finding Penny, they helped me research how to find a lost cat and we printed photos of Penny to show to neighbors, and my whole family did my best to comfort me the entire time. My neighbors were also amazing too (I’m still working on writing them thank you letters!), they were so encouraging and comforting and made every effort to keep a lookout for Penny.

Then, sometimes in the late afternoon/evening on the day after Halloween (it was a Friday), my mom found an article that talked about how most cats don’t get lost, they just get “displaced”, usually in a nearby neighbor’s yard. They might hide for a while, until they feel safe to come back home, but they aren’t often very far away. The article explained how it’s more productive when looking for a cat to skip the lost posters and check neighbor’s yards first, before going to shelters or vets or anything else. 

After having prayed for comfort and hope for a while, I finally felt comforted and hopeful. I hadn’t waited that long, but my wait felt very long.

Tigger is Found

That night was still difficult, I missed having Penny there with me, but I was able to sleep much better and felt this reassurance that we were going to find Penny the next day. I was able to come in for work the next morning, and about an hour before my shift ended I got texts from both my parents with a picture of Penny safely back home.

Our wonderful neighbors had allowed my parents to search their yards more thoroughly to find Penny, and lo and behold, it turned out she was right next door, in our neighbor Mike’s yard!

She had gotten stuck under the tarp that covered Mike’s back porch stairs (I think the stairs had a gate too), and her meow was so small we couldn’t hear it! Even if I had heard it (which I think I did a few times actually), it wasn’t loud enough for me to believe that it was anything but my imagination.

The tarp thankfully had seemingly kept her both warm and dry, and it rained a little too so that some of the water may have dripped down and she quite possibly would have had something to drink, at least. She wasn’t too starved either, since she hadn’t been gone that long. Overall she was in pretty good shape. My mom said when she found her she cried and held her. 

I already had cried, a lot, so when I got the news I found I was simply filled with joy and relief.

I came home and went downstairs excitedly and Penny came trotting right over, none the worse for her adventures in tarpland. She wanted to go outside again, but I was not going to be letting her out any more, at least not that day. 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I also went on an insane little mini trek through the overgrown slice of forest along the creek in ours and our neighbors’ backyards.

I took Penny’s bag of treats, asked my youngest bro if he’d be willing to come with (he was totally down for an insane little mini trek along the creek), and went out trudging around in a bunch of wet leaves, calling for Penny and shaking the bag. All while getting stabbed with a bunch of strange tiny needles from these weird spiky plants (so many splinters), almost getting poked in the eye with sticks several times, picking up thousands of tiny burs, nearly falling into the creek, and then actually falling into the creek—that is, stepping on a pile of twigs and having my whole leg fall through, getting one sneaker completely soaked in dirty, brown, stagnant creek water. 

By that point I gave up and ended up wading through the mucky water in my wet shoes for the rest of the adventure before coming home exhausted and looking like the creek had chewed me up and spat me out.

When I tell you I was dedicated to finding my lost tigger, I wasn’t exaggerating.

Shout out to my bro for walking around with me back there. Someone really needs to clean that place up with a leaf blower and a chainsaw.

For now, Penny is banned from going outside, unless I can figure out a way to make things work. This was strike two, and I am not interested in seeing what strike three looks like. 

(Update: got Penny a tracker for her collar and it works great! No more anxiety about losing her somewhere now, we’ve found her many times using the tracker remote. She is now happily running amuck outside again.)

Tags: JustMe, AllPosts