Family Depression: Come Back Home, Ivy

Although my family made it through the excitement of a new school year starting (it affected four out of five of  us), we are having to cope with something rather unpleasant -- the loss of a family pet.
The lightning household is a regular zoo sometimes when it comes to pets. Dogs, cats, fish, chinchillas, birds, tarantulas -- yes, we've got them. But a very special member of our family has been missing now for over three days -- and I am expecting the worst. I think that our oldest cat, Ivy, will not return.

Although I grew up with a family cat, I never seemed to have trouble with them until my young adult years. I developed a nasty allergy to them and would immediately get a runny nose and watery eyes when coming close to them. Therefore, a family cat was always out of the question.

That changed six years ago when one of my wife's friends stopped over to visit. Although it was months past my wife's birthday, this friend brought over a new kitty from her cat's new litter and said that it was a birthday present for my wife. I was thinkinging "wtf -- who gives live pets as gifts without checking first." She then disappeared out the door before I knew it. Of course, at the time I did not understand that the whole thing had been a setup to get my wife a kitten.

Strangely enough, we found out that my allergic reaction to cats disappeared over the years. Ivy became a new family member.

Although I was not happy about picking up an additional pet and did not like Ivy too much at first, she became fun to play with and left minimal scratches on my hands and arms. I could play rough with her and she could keep up.

She had this bad habit, howevever, of catching bunnies and birds and leaving the bloody entrails in our dining room. Well, we thought, at least she ate in the right room!

In the weeks prior to Black Friday, she would lay on the bed with me as I played online poker tournaments.  She got accustomed to sleeping on my bed during the day and would act indignant when she had to move. I had to give her props for having a personality and showing little fear.

I live in a subdivision that is adjacent to some farm land. It would not be out of the question to think that a fox or coyote might have helped Mother Nature even the score with Ivy. That is what I think happened.

In the meantime, my kids have posted fliers around the neighborhood, we continue to search, and we have put some posts on craigslist.com. So Mother Nature, how about "one time" for the family? We didn't even get to say goodbye.