Hope.

Those were the first words I heard when I turned on my car radio that Monday morning.

I was still sleep deprived and filled with gut-wrenching anxiety from the day before.

Our beloved Cat ran away on a Sunday afternoon. We had taken him outside for some fresh air – and in a comedy of errors (not so funny at the time) he became terrified and ran to a wooded area surrounding our subdivision.

We searched for hours in the cold, and I injured my already badly bruised leg further when I became entangled in some thorny bushes. The shrubbery was so dense it seemed impossible to find him.

We printed flyers immediately and went door to door around the neighborhood. Some neighbors were sympathic, some were clearly dog people, and one particularly creepy neighbor insinuated that something bad “got him”.

I went back to the house dejected, and filled with terror that our Cat had escaped and was eaten by an owl or some other unknown terror.

Hope.

After hearing those perfectly timed words when I turned on the radio – I remembered The Secret.

Each day I kept searching. We put his bed out – I knew he might want somewhere warm to sleep. We left food, water, and toys out. We also left the garage door ajar so he could come inside. We even parked in the driveway every evening so we did not keep him away with the loud noise of the door opening.

It was 3 am – a week later – and I heard a bell jingle in the garage below me. Was that him? I must be hearing things. Day after day each noise jumped at me. Back to sleep.

I had a dream that he came home that night that I heard my fiance’s voice “Baby, I got him”. The next morning, I opened the door to the garage and the food was missing, all of his favorite toys strewn about.

Later that day at work, I received a phone call. “Baby, I got him”. Each word exactly like my dream! He had finally come back after 9 days of hiding in the woods.