Tigger went missing on Friday, August 28. He’s not a lost pet. He knew where home was. He didn’t wander away. He disappeared.
Where he went, I have no idea, but I have a few hunches. Ones I’d love to be wrong about.
I knew something terrible had happened when I stayed up until 2 a.m. that night and he never came back. The remnants of Hurricane Laura had passed over Nashville that day and a bit into the evening. He went out in the rain after Wayne and I came home with our takeout.
He had been wrestling with Grayson on the stairs when we walked in. G stayed on the steps, but Tig dashed out. Not unusual. It was about 8 p.m. He often went out about that time to do his business before coming back in for the night.
But he never came back.
It’s been two weeks, and other pets in the area have also gone missing.
I’d love it if someone had took him hoping to get a reward. My friend Jen said that happened a lot during the recession. Hard times bring out the desperate in people.
Don’t get me wrong. I would of course not love that someone stooped that low, but at this point I’d happily pay a ransom to have my boy back again.
However, I feel very strongly something got him. Like a coyote or a bobcat.
My money’s mostly on bobcat.
It had to have happened pretty fast too. I swear I heard Tigger on the back deck sometime around 8:45 or 9. I didn’t get up until about 9:30 to check if he was ready to come in.
And to clarify, when I heard him, it was normal for him to scratch at the door but then just want to keep hanging out. He was funny that way. It was sort of a game he played.
So I left him out there, thinking it was just a regular night.
Until it wasn’t.
We searched every bush, all over the neighborhood, for several nights. No sign of him anywhere.
We listened to people’s garages and crawlspace entries, in case he got stuck inside somewhere.
On trash day we searched neighbor’s trash cans, on the off chance someone had hit him and just thrown him away.
I’ve posted online, put up fliers, checked shelters…he’s gone. Nowhere to be found. No one’s seen him.
He’s not lost. He’s missing. And now part of my heart is too.
I watch the doors, front and back, every time I pass them hoping to see his face peeking in the glass like he’d do wanting to come back in.
But my heart knows something horrible happened. A sense I get and also the way G is acting. He used to only hang out on the back deck. He’d come in at night with Tig, but during the day he just wanted to be outside.
On Saturday and Sunday immediately following Tigger’s disappearance, G disappeared too. Just during the day. Saturday I have no idea where he was. Sunday I know he was hiding in our neighbor’s bushes. When I found him his eyes were huge and terrified.
On the Monday following Tig’s disappearance, August 31, G stayed in the whole day. He’d only done that maybe twice over the winter on the coldest of days. He’d always made it clear he didn’t want to be a house cat. Like Tigger, they’d yowl and tear up the door to be let out.
He hasn’t yowled at all. He’s been content to stay in. Which to me speaks volumes about Tigger’s fate.
Today I was going through photos and realized I happened to snap one the day he went missing, on August 28. In fact, it was the only photo I took that day.
These are the five last photos of him I have and will likely ever take unless by some miracle he comes back. I’d love to be wrong about him getting taken by another animal. I’ve never wanted to be so wrong about anything in my life.
But I don’t think I am and my heart…it’s devastated. We only had four years together, but I’m so thankful for that. He was a character from the start. I don’t think we even had him a week when he got skunked. And in the beginning, like his first year, he’d get so wild in the mornings and so out of control playing I had to have a beach towel nearby to protect myself with because he’d attack me. I’d use it to hide behind or to throw over him to catch me as he tried to latch on to my legs or arms. (He was a very wild kid at the very beginning.)
But then he’d feel bad for getting so nuts and bring home presents to say sorry. Same when I was under the weather. I hated that he was a hunter, but that was his nature. It was cute he wanted to share.
And now it seems the hunter may have become the hunted. I’m not sure why karma had to work like that. I can think of a lot of other people I’d like to see karma catch up with, but…well. It didn’t.
Tigger, I miss you more than I have words for. I told you this every night before I went to bed because I meant it: Thank you for adopting us. Every single day I was grateful you chose us to be your people when you came into our lives that July four years ago. Your pawprints are now etched forever in my heart. May you rest in peace –unless for some reason you really are lost. Then hurry up and get your furry butt home!
