Still Missing

It’s been a roller coaster of emotions this week. Bishop still hasn’t come home. There have been tears for missing our cat, for fear that something might have happened to him, for relief when we hear news that someone might have spotted him and tears for the idiocy of others as well as the pure kindness and love shown to us by friends, family and complete strangers.

Immediately after posting the original post last week, our neighbors rushed over saying they just saw Bishop in their back yard but that their dog also saw him, barked and scared him off the opposite direction. It’s so hard, because we live for any tips we can get, but unless we also see the cat, we can’t confirm if it was really him or not. Half of the tips we’ve received we have actually been able to spot the cat and it wasn’t Bishop. Unfortunately, whether we see the cat in question or not, we find ourselves altering our search based on these supposed leads.

It’s hard to be in the house and not have him here with us. We find ourselves doing things that we would never do if Bishop were around and it kind of catches us. My studio door, or the door to the storage part of the basement, wide open. Leaving the door out to the garage wide open, hoping he will wander back to us.

Some of the tips we found were to hang as many posters as possible, and we have done just that. I’ve been very disappointed by (mostly commercial) establishments not allowing us to hang a missing poster. Also, people tearing down the posters I hung up on telephone poles. We visited all the local pet stores, and animal clinics to hang posters and only one actually had a location which might be visible to people coming in or out of their business. By far I was most saddened by PetCo and PetSmart when my posters were designated to small out of the way locations, both hidden by other larger displays. For a place that is supposed to be in support of animals, they sure didn’t help me at all. I understand this was probably a reaction to people trying to post their “for sale” signs, but I’m not trying to sell anything.

There was a postman yesterday who went out of his way to hunt me down and provide a tip to me. And then unrelated, yesterday this was in our mailbox:

An envelope addressed to us, and inside a hand scrawled letter, obviously by a child who lives 2 houses down. If you can’t read it, it says “Google: How to find a lost cat 19 steps wiki how. This is what I found to find a lost cat, and it has good ideas. if you have any more questions come to XXX South 8th Street in (our town) and provides her phone number! On the inside it says who she is, her parent’s names and that she saw our cat the night he disappeared and where she saw him, AND that we should write back WITH pictures! Oh my gosh. Tears. So sweet. I will definitely be writing her back.

Meanwhile, we continue to hang our posters, call out for him and  hope that we get more leads from the newspaper ad or posters with sightings. We are especially encouraged by the many stories people provide saying their cat returned a week, 2 weeks, or 3 weeks later, etc. I hope we won’t have to wait long and try to remain positive. As soon as we find him, I will update.  Thank you for the support.