Next Stop: Lost and Found

If you want to read the story from the beginning, start here. If you want to read from the middle, start here.

We picked up the rental truck Thursday morning. My husband had clients to see so I started loading the boxes. When he got back home that evening, we started loading furniture. We’d disassemble my bed in the morning, load it on the truck, and be off.

Friday, to my surprise, things went smoothly. Then I realized I hadn’t taken any clothes from the dresser – one of the first large items we’d loaded onto the truck. We moved nearly everything and I retrieved some clothing to wear the next couple of days. We started loading the rest of my furniture and then my husband asked where the dogs’ leashes were. They were in the cabinet – the second of the large items we’d loaded on the truck. We moved nearly everything again and I retrieved the dogs’ leashes. We took apart the bed and loaded it. I put the birds (oh yes, I also have 2 finches!) in one of the dog’s crates, packing pillows around them so they’d not be thrown about in the back of the truck. We put the litter box and my 17 year old cat in the cabin of the truck; he’d be riding with my husband. We got the dogs into my car and we were suddenly ready.

The gravity of it all was beginning to hit me. I was leaving my house. I was leaving the city I’d lived in for the past 13 years. I was leaving my spirtual group and a long list of dear friends that I’d not even had time to call to say good bye. I’d be sending my husband back to this house alone (but for the two cats that would stay with him). I’d be nearly 700 miles away. In a new city. Alone. My fear was overwhelming.

But he got in and started the truck. I got in the car. We were on our way. The dogs settled down fairly early in the trip. We’d drive until we reached our hotel and stop for the night. We’d get up in the morning and be at the rental house in the early afternoon. My sister, niece and nephew would come to help us unload the truck. My best friend and her husband would also stop by. Despite not resembling anything I had imagined this move might look like, we were on our way.

We stopped a few times to stretch our legs, grab food and drink, potty, and walk the dogs. We stopped for the night and the dogs were actually very well behaved. The cat seemed quite traumatized all day but he was quickly inspecting all corners of the room and nibbling from his dish.

We were up early as the dogs got restless and wanted to walk. Trying to keep them quiet at 6am caused us to be rushed. We kept them outside for about 15 minutes since they’d been couped up all the day before and would be again all day. A check on the birds showed they’d survived the chilly night; they flitted around drinking and eating, seeming none the worse for wear.

Back in the room, I started getting the food for the dogs and cat ready. But there was no cat. He was not in the bath tub nor under the sink. The bed sat on a wooden frame that went all the way to the floor, offering no place to hide. He simply wasn’t in the room. We figured he must have slipped outside when we were hurrying to get the dogs out.

For the next two hours, we walked in widening cirlces around the hotel, dogs in tow. We called and called for the cat. We got silence in return, nothing more than chilly breezes and the sounds of traffic rushing by in the distance. By 8:30, we decided we needed to go. Seventeen years of Meethos the Cat seemed to be over; he was lost to me.

At the office, where I turned in our key card, I mentioned that the cat must have escaped. Meaning to leave them my name and number in the event he turned up, I was taken aback when all three people behind the desk said in unison, “he’s under the bed!”. I explained that there was no “under the bed”. But they assured me the cats always found a way and suggested we lift up the mattresses. I hurried back to the room, lifted up a corner of the mattress, and there he was. On the opposite side, of course. My husband lifted that side and I plucked him up. More tears, this time from relief.

We packed up the dogs and the cat and away we went, into the mountains and through the woods, to a rental house unknown.

Next Stop: Dreams and Realities