In Which I Get A Wonderful Christmas Surprise

Just one week after I left for Paris, Houston was hit hard by Hurricane Ike. In a flurry of evacuation my sweet (but neurotic) cat Simon escaped from my mother as she transported them to the designated safe spot of my uncle's house. With so little time to leave the area she couldn't catch him again.

I was devastated. Simon had showed up on my mom's patio in 2003 with huge bat ears, a circus full of fleas and a pipsqueak meow. He was immediately stolen (and then returned) by a coveting neighbor and shortly thereafter moved with me to my apartment in downtown - the first apartment I ever lived in alone. He had been from Houston to Austin and back to Houston again with me. He slept under my covers at night and followed me like I was his mother. He was Fitch's best friend and brother. I couldn't stand the idea that my cat may have died in the storm but there was nothing I could do from France to help find him again. And though my mother put up fliers and my uncle kept his eye out, Simon never returned to us.

For a year and a half I stayed hopeful. Months and months after the mess from the hurricane was cleared it was rumored that he was seen hunting birds around the neighbors house. Occasionally my Uncle would spy a little grey cat darting across a lawn. I had dreams about finding him. He always came home safe to me.

So naturally today when my mother and I went to my uncle's for Christmas dinner, the first thing I did was excuse myself to wander around the neighborhood and look for him. I walked for a half an hour in all of the directions I thought he might go calling his name and making the silly high pitched cat noises that used to call him home. He was no where to be seen.

After dinner, as I sensed my mom was getting tired and ready to leave, I took my cousin on one more walk - just to see. We wandered the one street I hadn't gone down and a couple I had but he still hadn't turned up.

"I'm just sad," I said to my cousin. "It's all I wanted for Christmas, to see my cat again."

As we got to the front door I paused and looked across the street one last time. I caught my breath.

"Oh my God I think that's him." I said. Before my cousin could respond I was walking towards a green garage with a frightened grey ball beside it.

We walked slowly and I kept calling his name as I approached. He didn't move and as my vision sharpened I saw quite clearly my cat - very much alive - for the first time in over a year. As trucks pulled out loudly on the street behind me I knelt down on the sidewalk in front of the empty driveway and began to cry. Slowly, skeptically, Simon crept towards me.

"Can you please do me a favor," I turned to my cousin with tears in my eyes, "Can you go get the can of cat food that is on the credenza in your dad's house?"

"Is that really him?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes! Can you believe it?!"

He ran back across the street to fetch the food.

For ten minutes I slowly followed Simon closer to the house, coaxing him out with the can of smelly wet food. I examined him and though he was clearly being fed somewhere he was not being kept. His once glossy, rabbit soft fur was coarse and his lean slevt body was thick with tom cat muscles. He warily let me pet him.

In a moment I realized I couldn't even think about leaving my baby to live outside for the rest of his life and I snatched him up in my arms, gripping him as strongly as I could. He was petrified, gripping around my neck like a child.

Oh but the look on my mother's face when I walked inside with my cat. We had all thought him so long gone - uncatchable - for so long that it was like seeing a ghost.

I opened the can of food for him and he wandered around my uncle's house meowing loudly, no longer comfortable being indoors. He went immediately for the window sill, feeling safest there.


Simon is nearly feral now. I knew immediately that we couldn't take him home to my mother's house because, even if we had the money between us to get all four cats up to date on their vaccinations (which we most certainly do not), there is no telling how he would behave with the others after being a stray for so long. I suspect he will re-habituate to being indoors quickly - he has already remembered my caresses and even let out little purrs when I talked to him - and so I am hoping that one of my nearby friends will be interested in letting my little love bug learn to be a sweet pet again. I don't know what I'll do if I can't find a place.

For the moment, I am not thinking about it. Though I am wishing he was curled up on my belly just like before I left for France, I am contented knowing where he is, that he is safe and warm and that my sweet kitten will have a happy home again soon.

It makes for a Merry Christmas indeed.