The Fugitive
Choosing to sell my home and move from the town where I’d lived happily for 50 years was hard. It meant leaving old friends and favorite places — my comfort zone for decades. It meant finding new friends and new welcoming places.
I wasn’t looking forward to the challenge. Still, the time had come. And my two cherished cats would be coming along.
Ah, my dear felines. Murphy and Clark are 9-year-old litter mates I have coddled since they were just weeks old. They’d roamed freely around my 5-acre suburban property, and having a yard for them at our new home was a big factor in my decision to move 20 miles away, into an apartment in my daughter’s house. The next step was to acquaint the siblings with their yet-to-beexplored yard. And so began an amazing tale of lost and found and new friendships.
Following advice, I kept the kitties indoors for two weeks, letting them see and smell their new surroundings through open windows. Then I wrapped the more adventurous Murphy in a “99-percent-escape-proof ” halter, attached it to a leash, and headed outdoors. All was going well as she strolled curiously around the property, sniffing everything and exploring under bushes. When she crept too far under a low-growing shrub, I inched her back.
Stubbornly, she resisted my tugs. I picked her up to tote her back inside. She squirmed and I dropped her. Apparently in the 1 percent, Murphy escaped the halter and leaped over a fence.
The commotion brought my daughter out. We darted into the neighbor’s yard to catch the cat. Back and forth we ran, but she had vanished. We had no idea which way she had gone.
Our long search commenced. We posted Murphy’s photo on social media, notified the local animal control officer, and tacked up posters. Aside from one false sighting, I heard nothing for five months. The frigid weather set in. I was heartbroken and worried sick. Then one Saturday in January, I clicked on Nextdoor, an app for neighborhoods. A woman walking her dog 3 miles away had seen a black-and-white tuxedo cat she thought might be lost and posted a photo of it. It looked a lot like Murphy!
I ventured crosstown daily to scour the neighborhood where that cat had been sighted. I hung more posters, showed Murphy’s photo to dog walkers, and even knocked on some doors to ask about her. Soon I started getting texts and phone calls from helpful neighbors who reported seeing her in their yards, on their security cameras, and even on one person’s deck. Three caring teenagers joined the search, accompanying me on my daily treks and pointing out where they’d spotted her. It had become a neighborhood quest.
After three weeks, a call came from someone named Anne. She recognized Murphy from the posters as the cat she had seen straying through her yard for weeks. On her own, Anne bought a Havahart trap and set it up with smelly sardines. Three days later, she called.
“We have Murphy!” she pronounced. I whooped with joy.
Anne and Beth, her sister, loaded the trap into her car and promptly delivered my missing cat right into my living room.
Now not only do I have my Murphy back, I have two special new friends. Anne and Beth and I have lunched together, strolled Castle Island together, and, with the advent of good weather, golfed together. As beginners, they look to me for advice. That’s dubious, but we do so enjoy our newly shared pastime on the links.
As for Murphy and Clark, it took them awhile to adjust to living together again after those many months apart. But all is back to normal, and I aim to keep it that way. Fingers and paws crossed.