Fluffy

At the beginning of the summer, a stray cat wandered into the neighborhood.  Since several families fed the cat, she hung around and quickly became known as the neighborhood cat.  When Anna "found" the cat, she enthusiastically began feeding, playing with, and trying to groom the long-haired dirty white cat.

Over the weeks, "Fluffy" became a regular part of the yard decor.  She sometimes waited for Anna in the morning, and every single night she would be close by, waiting to be pet and fed.  Our other 3 cats had even accepted her—the first "outsider" they'd  accepted in 10 years (well, except the baby opossum our "special" cat tried to mother once...but that's another story...).

Four days ago, Fluffy failed to show up.  Anna wasn't too concerned until about the end of the second day.  Yesterday she started to voice her concern, and today she was very sad and very concerned.  She asked if we could go to the animal shelter to see if Fluffy was there...how could I not.  We didn't see Fluffy in any of the cages (though we did spend lots of time holding and petting many other adorable kittens and cats!)  On our way out, we asked the people at the front desk if they had seen a white cat with one green eye and one blue eye.  They said they indeed had a white cat with one blue eye and one green eye that they had received about 4 days before.  What are the odds?  ...But it wasn't fluffy.

For the rest of the day, Anna restlessly paced the neighborhood looking for Fluffy, becoming more anxious as the day went on.  Late afternoon I went up to her room and we prayed for protection for Fluffy.  We prayed that she would come back, but mostly we prayed for any kind of sign or clue so that we would know what happened to her or where she was.  About 20 minutes later, the kids went out to play (and look for Fluffy again).  They saw one of the neighbors out watering his grass and asked if he had seen the cat.  The neighbor said that he saw the cat yesterday and fed her.  Right after that, Fluffy came walking toward Anna from somewhere in the neighborhood (Anna's not sure where she came from).  What a relief!

Fluffy followed Anna  home enjoyed dinner (it just so happened that Anna had some fish left over from her dinner) and some love.  Anna spent all evening outside with the cat and suddenly her world was all put back together.

Thank you God, you knew how much we needed that!  

Anna took these beautiful pictures of Fluffy several weeks ago.