Madeleine M. Kunin, who was a three-term governor of Vermont, is the author of “Coming of Age: My Journey to the Eighties.”
I lost my indoor cat to the wild outdoors for 11 days. It was my fault.
My sadness was sudden and overwhelming. I had turned into the clichéd person I used to make fun of — ”the old lady and her cat.”
It happened just two days before the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah. I had cooked two ironware pots of brisket that did not fit in my refrigerator. I carried them — one by one — out of the kitchen onto a table on my deck to cool. I closed the sliding door on the pitch-dark night.
What I failed to realize was that my cat — officially named Gina, but simply called Kitty — had snuck out into the cold autumn night.
Not until the next afternoon did I realize that Kitty was missing in action. She had often hidden in strange places in the house. I tried not to worry.
Soon, a family search took over. Two of my sons, on separate occasions, plus my 3-year-old grandson Thomas, called “Kitty” as they tramped through the woods near my house. A friend put Kitty on the local listserv and my son Adam announced my lost cat online.
Wherever I went, many people in my Wake Robin community asked me about my cat and I would shake my head back and forth, silently.
Do raccoons kill cats? It must have been a raccoon who had a taste for the brisket taken from one of the pots with its lid ajar.
Someone thought they saw my cat and we searched in other places.
Then, one late afternoon, I thought I saw my cat running away. I called her, and she was gone. She had a white spot on her tail, just like my cat.
In desperation, I called the Humane Society. “How do I get my cat back? I think she’s spooked.”
“We can lend you a Havahart trap,” they suggested.
“Great!” I replied in a hopeful voice.
I got the trap, figured out how it worked, put cat food back into the rear of the trap, and left for the evening of the high holiday service of Yom Kippur.
When Adam and I returned and had just walked in the door, he said, “Let’s check the trap.” I was skeptical.
Suddenly, we heard crazy meowing. She was caught in the trap.
“You’re sure it’s your cat?”
The white spot on her tail!
Happiness exploded inside me. I laughed and cried at the same time.
This old lady had her cat back.
Oh, joy!
