... and kitty makes three: Llyr Scare

For about an hour yesterday, I thought we'd lost Llyr forever.

Before we started eating dinner at 4:15 (normal for me on Mondays because I then have to drive to Warrensburg for class, but early for Matt. He came home early from work and was able to see me before I left), Llyr wanted to go out. He'd already been out two or three times and he'd been pretty good each time. He can escape the yard through one length of fence on the east side of the house, but usually he doesn't get far before I check and see he's out and go get him. He walks slowly and likes to look at things. This time, the last time he'd been out, he'd only just gotten into the side yard and was sitting by the neighbor's house, looking around. So when Matt said, "Llyr wants to go out, can he?" I said "Yes, I guess so."

Llyr desperately wants to be an outside cat. We indulge him by letting him the backyard sometimes. Usually he just watches the birds but sometimes he gets restless and leaves the yard.

We ate, and then around 4:25 I asked Matt to look out the window for him. Matt couldn't see him so he went out in the front to check. Usually Llyr just goes to the front yard, or the front of our neighbor's yard. The farthest I've ever seen him go is two houses to the west, where he sat under a neighbor's truck. But Matt couldn't see him anywhere, front or back. I grabbed Mr. Raccoon and took him out with me to look. In the house, Llyr always comes running if I squeak Mr. Raccoon. Outside of the house, if I walk around with him, I will usually find Llyr after a few minutes when he comes out from wherever he is to see Mr. Raccoon. He doesn't come over to me since he'd rather explore, but even the time he was under the truck he poked his head out to see why his favorite toy was outside, then I was able to get him.

We walked around the house, squeaking and looking, for several minutes. Now it was getting close to the time when I needed to leave for class. We got in the car and took a drive around the block, cursing the ridiculous amount of traffic in our residential neighborhood that made us speed up and have less time to look for Llyr. We couldn't believe he'd gotten so far in so short a time and was nowhere in sight. Matt said, "This might be the time he really got away for good."

Finally, it was time that I had to go. I asked Matt if he'd keep looking, and Matt said, "Sure ... there's just so many things to do." I got really hurt and mad at this and said, "Fine then, don't look anymore if you don't want to." I know Matt didn't mean to sound like he didn't care about Llyr, he was just commenting that, of course, Llyr would run off on a day when he'd had a lot of work and other things planned. But as I left I started crying. I was sure Llyr wouldn't come back, he'd just keep exploring and get lost. I prayed that he'd get hungry and come back safe.

On my way up to Warrensburg (wishing I could skip class but not able to, since I commute with someone), Matt called. He said he had kept looking for a long time but couldn't find him. I said, "If you want to do something else, that's fine." Matt apologized for sounding like he didn't want to look, and I said I was sorry I'd gotten upset and I knew he hadn't meant to sound that way. I wanted him to leave out food for Llyr but Matt thought then if he came back he might eat and then leave again. The worst part was I hadn't taken time to put our address on the back of Llyr's tags yet, so even if someone found him they wouldn't know where to take him, unless they thought to take him to the clinic where he'd gotten his rabies shots.

The whole time, I kept thinking what a horrible day April 8 was going to be from now on if Llyr really was gone. I have a journal that I've kept since the beginning of last year, and while writing in it the night before last, I'd looked ahead to last year's entry for April 8. Last year April 8 was Easter, and on that day my dog Indiana Jones, who I'd had for 15 years, was hit by a car. Well, she wasn't really hit we think, because she wasn't physically harmed. But, when the car went by she got scared and fell down, after which she couldn't stand up or move her legs correctly. We took her to the vet the next day and he said it seemed like she may have had something degenerative coming on slowly (it was hard for her to get up in the mornings) but the scare had made it progress quickly, and she wouldn't be able to get better. We had to put her to sleep. Matt came on his lunch hour to be with me and Indy.

Indy was a great dog. I got her when I was 7 years old. Even though Llyr is technically Matt's first pet, I felt like Indy kind of was, too. Indy barked at Matt the first couple times he came to my house, but after that she fell in love with his wonderful pets and scratches, and he loved her too. When he played with her I knew Matt was a pet person. She was a crazy Jack Russell Terrier who bossed around my family's other dog, Chipper, an Australian Shepherd, and licked the wall when she got nervous. But she was loving and playful and the best dog ever. I miss her a lot, but I'm glad I got to have her for so long.

Thankfully, Llyr wasn't really gone forever. Matt called a second time around 5:30 to tell me that he'd "found" Llyr. Matt had decided to plant some seeds. He said he squeaked Mr. Raccoon for a long time, but didn't see Llyr. But when he got down to plant, all of a sudden he heard a jingling sound, and as he looked around, Llyr appeared from behind the pew sitting against the wall of the house on the concrete pad in our backyard. Thank goodness he called, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on class. Matt had to tell the neighbors he'd alerted that Llyr had been in the backyard the whole time. Matt said he knew something was up because Llyr never strays that far ... but I don't know what happened. I guess he was asleep and didn't hear the squeaking? Or he was being terribly mean and hiding from us. Either way, I was ready to get home and love on him and scold him for hiding from us. You can bet now I'll be engraving his tags and not letting him outside without supervision for a while. It was a horrible scare. Matt joked that without Llyr we would have time to do more stuff - but really it's not Llyr that takes up our time, but work and homework. Without him our things wouldn't get destroyed as much. But as Matt said more seriously, without him our little family wouldn't be complete. How could we be "Matt and E and kitty makes three" without our precious kitty? I'm glad he's back and I hope that, like Indy, we can have our dear Llyr for at least 15 years, too.

That night as I wrote in my journal that thankfully Llyr wasn't gone forever, I looked at the quote at the top of the page. It is a Jane Austen-themed journal with a quote from a novel or correspondence on each page. April 8 reads: "Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain." Matt said I should take that to heart. He's right, I am worried and anxious too much. And perhaps I shouldn't have thought it was so certain that Llyr was gone - but the thought that it might have turned out that way is scary and painful. I don't know what I'd do without my kitty Llyr.

Here are some recent pictures of Llyr being cute in honor of him not actually having run away from us: