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Where Did Milo Go?

We are missing a piece of our hearts…

Milo is gone.

I’d prefer not think that our cat is dead. Or that he was intentionally taken. With more than a week since the last time we saw Milo, I’d rather imagine him trapped in a neighbor’s garage or tool shed. That imagination leads me to wondering (even hoping) that he was found and is now hanging around someone else’s home.

We’ve had Milo in our lives since he was five months old. This year we think he turned twelve. He was a rescue, chosen by my wife and our niece. I got to name him. My wife is a cat person; I’m a dog person. I’ve joked that the phrase “We will always have cats in our home” was included in our wedding vows. It wasn’t. But it could’ve been.

In my personal experience, there are three cat categories:

A.   I haven’t liked several of our past cats. That being said, I didn’t dislike ‘em. They seemed to go about their business with minimal interest in me. They never sat on my lap. They never gave me an upbeat meow for feeding them. One left the room nearly every time I entered.

B.    For some, the “like” has been mutual. Good kitty! Good human!

C.    One was my best four-legged feline pal. (That was Olivier, who died in 2000.)

Milo was in the B category. We liked each other. In the old joke about dogs having owners and cats having staff, I was happily on Milo’s staff.

Because Milo was so friendly with everyone in the neighborhood, I was probably known by many as “the guy who lives with Milo.” He’d touch noses with dogs. He’d cross the street (slowly) to greet babies in strollers or kids on bikes. He allowed everyone to pet him.

Furry.

Funny.

Friendly.

That’s Milo. Ten pounds of “how ya doing” and “it’s good to see you.”

On many evenings, when we took our dog for a stroll, Milo trailed along. After a block or two, we bored him and off he went to explore more interesting places or people, scents or sounds.

Cats and dogs are predators. I never forget that. For all of their cute domesticity, they are claws and fangs. Milo, like every cat with access to the outdoors, did his share of killing. Some (I won’t name any current president) claim that wind turbines are terrible for birds. Turbines, according to some high estimates, annually kill nearly 700,000 of our feathered friends. Cats? The low-end statistics would indicate at least a billion birds die every year from cat attacks. Anyone who has heard a serious “cat fight” during a dark night in the suburbs is momentarily transported back to a primeval jungle or savannah or forest.

And yet we invite these killers to share our home.

Of course we do. Cats are a mystery; aloof in one moment, curled into your lap an hour later.

I don’t understand cats. My wife probably doesn’t either, but she loves them. On her morning walks, while listening to an audio book, she’ll count cats in our ‘hood. She’ll stop and talk with them. I have hundreds of pictures of one dog—our sweet Kynzi—on my photo app. She has hundreds of pictures of the cats she meets while pounding the pavement in this part of Fresno.

One of our cats in the past, the daring, swashbuckling Moses (in category B), vanished for several weeks. He came back and lived out his life with us.

Will Milo return?

Don’t know . . .

I just miss him.

Thanks for reading. More next week . . .

 in Peace,

Larry Patten

I’ll post simultaneously on Substack and here. Choices for your reading pleasure.