Doodle and Creek

My mother recently emailed me the best story I've heard in a long time, full of emotional highs and lows, greater truths, honesty, courage, mystery, and fur. Yes, that's right, fur. It concerns a cat named Max (full etymology of names and nicknames: Scabby->Scabface->Maxwell->Max->Maxie->Maxface->Maxie Doodle [my mom's contribution]->Doodle/Dude) and a dog named Sandy (aka "Sandy Creek," named after the body of water in Alabama near which she was originally found). Please keep in mind that these two loving animals are united despite their historically opposed feline and canine classifications, as they were both rescued from illness and near starvation by Me and Sam (Max) and my mom and dad (Sandy) and grew to become healthy, happy, and loyal pets. I feel this detail is integral to the story. Also keep in mind that since I moved to London, my parents kindly took in Max on a temporary basis, and so the cat and the dog have been forming a tenuous relationship as they struggle to overcome the instinctual differences of their respective species.

So, a few days ago I awoke to a long email from my mom that started off with a shocking bit of news. That morning, at around 4:00 am Pacific Standard Time, Max had gone missing. My mom had woken up chilly and went outside to get some firewood, since my Idyllwild home, deemed by Sarah C. to be akin to an "Elfin Cottage," is heated by wood fire alone. Coming back inside with the required logs, she thought back to a few days earlier, when she had gone out in a similar fashion and come back to find Max lying down inside the fireplace (while it was unlit, obviously) because he apparently thought that was fun. So she decided she would check that he hadn't crawled in there again. The good news was that he was not pouncing about amongst the ashes. The bad news, however, was that she couldn't find him anywhere else, either. She searched high and low about the house before realizing that it may have been possible that, in her sleepiness, she hadn't shut the door all the way when she went outside. Now, for those of you who have not visited Idyllwild, it is an official wilderness; a real, honest-to-gosh forest with big old trees and dark caverns and mountain lions and bobcats and coyotes that lurk about. And on top of that, only a few weeks before, my childhood cat Chloe disappeared and was never found.

My mom was understandably distressed. She walked around outside in the early morning dark calling for Max, shining her flashlight in all the hiding places she could think of. Sandy had been roused with the commotion and came to to join in the search. They looked and looked for over an hour, but the kitty was nowhere to be found. My mom, in exhaustion and worry, sat down on the steps of the front deck and cried. She couldn't stand to lose another beloved pet, and knew I wouldn't be able to either.

Then, in the dim light of early morning, she looked up to see Sandy trotting down the steps that lead to our house from the road, nudging Max home in front of her. She had somehow managed to find him all by herself. Max was all poofed up, as scared cats are wont to be, and ran gratefully inside through the front door. My mom, accompanied by the happily reunited pets, got back into bed for a few more hours of sleep before she would have to wake up to get ready for work, and Max reached over and put his little paw on Sandy's side. For real.