Home Beckons

Image by biddit

“He just shot out of the back seat before we could catch him.” My mother-in-law apologized over and over again, as I fought back a wave of panic. “Why in the world didn’t they put him in the cat carrier,” I thought. Biting my tongue, I quickly told her not to worry. My in-laws are wonderful, kind, and caring people and also animal lovers, so I knew how terribly they must have felt as Mutton raced up the driveway and disappeared into the woods behind the vet’s office.

I first met the escapee cat at a Little League baseball game. Another parent brought tiny kittens to the game hoping to find homes for them. One little gray ball of fluff, whose face reminded me of a gorilla baby, looked at me and we bonded instantly. I took him home hoping that my husband would also find him irresistible. He did, so we christened our new family member Mutton. Now, nine years later, we mourned his disappearance into the wilds six miles from home.

We searched the woods for a couple of days, put flyers in peoples’ mailboxes, and advertised in the local paper, but Mutton was gone. As the days turned into weeks, fond stories of Mutton surfaced at family gatherings as we remembered his gorilla-like face, his raccoon-shaped body, and his calm, trusting personality. Well-loved and hard-missed, Mutton remained alive in my thoughts as the months passed.

Then, one day six months after the disappearance, I was ironing in the basement and saw something move across the small window at the top of the wall. Curious, I went upstairs and out onto the porch. You guessed it! As I walked toward the far door, I saw Mutton coming up the steps onto the porch. He seemed a bit confused about whether he was really at the end of his six month, six-mile odyssey, but I called his name, and he came to me. You can imagine my excitement! I picked him up, calling to my husband, and we fussed over our thinner, but healthy-looking miracle cat.

This story so far isn’t too unusual. I’ve read other tales of pets returning home from even longer distances and in shorter timeframes. What’s the crazy twist to this story? A couple of days before Mutton returned, I dreamt that he came home. That might not seem too unusual either, since I still missed him and thought of him often. Here’s the kicker: in my dream, I walked across the porch toward the far door as Mutton came up the steps, exactly like it happened just two days later!

Did I see the future? Can our minds travel across time barriers? Did Mutton send me a message? Did I send a message to Mutton? Can we communicate with animals or with each other directly with our minds? Or, was it just a strange coincidence?

We recently traveled to Florida, taking Mutton with us and worrying all the way about losing him again. Fortunately, he settled comfortably into his new temporary home. Good thing. At his walking rate of one mile per month, it would take him one hundred years to find his way back to Pennsylvania!