About three weeks ago, our neighbor’s cat, Mavis, disappeared. They were pretty unhappy, as you might imagine, and put up flyers.

Mavis is a house kitty who’s very skittish around cars, and so no-one could figure where she’d gone.

Friday night as Dave, Viv and I walked back from a pho dinner at Thanh Bros on Broadway, we saw a black and white cat about half a block down the street. She was on 13th, off John in the direction of the reservoir. I called, “Mavis?”

Much to my surprise, the cat immediatley responded, and came trotting over, meowing, but still skittish, especially when a car would go by on John. She came to Dave and was purring loudly.

I told Dave to pick her up, which he did, but she would have none of it. Pushing out of his arms emphatically, I feared she was going to run away.

I told Viv to go get our neighbors so that if she did run off familiar voices could call her. Viv dashed up the street.

Dave picked her up again, and this time she allowed him to hold her. Eventually the jumped to the ground again and then I picked her up. I could see one of our neighbors across the intersectiion of 12th and John, by now; we had begun carrying the cat up the hill. She was purring and obviously very happy to be receiving affection.

The cat was still tryig to jump away each time a car passed, and by the time our neighbor had crossed the street, she’d gotten to the ground again. Mavis was still allowing me to gently restrain her and I was stroking her and talking to her.

Both our neighbors had caught up with us now, and Mavis’s ‘mom’ was crying for joy. He husband held her closely as she cradled Mavis. She was clearly overwhelmed by the unexpected gift of being reunited with her cat again after such a relatively long time. She kept remarking how much weight the cat had lost, tears running down her face.

I found I moving and difficult not to share her strong emotion.