Our youngest cat Matcha has been missing since November 12. I was out in the garden that morning and he came up and greeted me several times, seeming happy and comfortable. Around 11am, I called for the cats to came in. Mack came right away, but Matcha was nowhere to be found. My garden helper was in the yard also, the cats used to him by now.
We started calling for him after lunch. No answer. We texted and talked to all the neighbors nearby. I posted on every lost pet website I could find. We expanded our search, knocking on doors on the other side of the woods. We put up signs over the weekend. I got some really good advice from the directors at Operation Catnip. They made me two color signs, which we put up right away. They looked at the map of our neighborhood and the nearby neighborhoods on the other side of the woods. They observed that a cat can travel through areas that a human can't reach by a car. The following weekend we made more color signs at a copy shop and put them up. My husband spent hours walking in the woods behind our house, mostly a narrow corridor between neighborhoods, but in some places wider and more densely overgrown.
A couple of times people said they thought they might have seen our cat. We went over right away, but it wasn't him, or the sighting had been fleeting and hours before. During this time, I was texted by a neighbor who had lost her orange cat a month before Matcha disappeared. We both feel the heartache.
There was no sound when Matcha disappeared. No deer barking or snorting. No dog barking. No cat yowling. Nothing. Just a neighbor's cat sauntering down the driveway, reputed by his owner to be an avoider of fighting. We asked neighbors to check their garages, and my garden helper checked his truck.
Weeks later, my husband is still calling and has clothes with his smell on them hanging in the yard. He still walks around the woods and the neighborhood. If I could, I would walk too, but I am in between hip replacements and I can only get around with a walker.
Everyone has been very kind, wanting to help, understanding the pain of losing a cat who is a beloved family member. It will be a miracle if we see him again, a miracle I would gladly accept if he came walking in the yard or we got a call from someone who found him and had his microchip scanned.
We had almost four years with Matcha as part of our family. We all had a lot of work to assimilate him into our family, to heal the trauma of his previous life fighting thirty other cats for food. You could not ask for a more willing learner. I often said that Matcha got up every morning looking for ways to be a good boy that day. While I was recovering from surgery especially, Matcha was by my side during the night, right where I could reach down and pet him. Of course, he was also a normal cat.
Our other two cats are adapting, and we give them treats and snuggles as always. Sometimes they look for him around the yard and the house.
Matcha is always on my mind. I hope someone is caring for him, and that he is safe.
