Raul Is Missing

July: I was doing a 10-day house- and dog-sit on the Westside when I saw the poster of the missing cat on all the telephone poles and stop signs in the neighborhood. I took a perfunctory glance at a not very good picture of a black cat and the words "Help us Find Our Missing Cat...11 years old...last seen July 3 in the evening" just in case me and Beanie, the dog who is entrusted in my care, would come across him in our meanderings up and down the side streets. Didn't think much of it til I saw the postcard in the mail "Raul is lost! Have you seen him?" In the much clearer photo Raul is sitting on the arm of a sofa, not looking at the camera. It's this postcard that makes me weep. That someone loves their cat so much, not only do they flier every telephone pole in a two-mile radius, but they also send out postcards in the mail. If my cat were missing, I would do the same. 
Fortunately I have never had a cat go missing. But my cat is a "roamer," thinks every house in the neighborhood is his private property, and everyday I worry that one night he might not come home. He just showed up one day a few years ago--I don't know if someone dumped him, or if he just defected. I realize he could one day choose to leave and go live elsewhere. 
Which, stupidly, brings up all my abandonment issues, as well as my worries about being a responsible human to a companion animal. Then I think what it must be like for parents to worry constantly about their children, let alone a cat or a dog. If I had kids I'd be a nervous wreck.
So now when I walk Beanie and I see all those fliers, I get weepy.I don't know why Raul has affected me so. I have never met Raul or his humans, but I know where they live-they have a sign on their front lawn that says "home of missing black cat." Perhaps it brings all the things and people that have gone missing in my life: ex-lovers, friends, ambition, libido, joy, financial stability, a certain kind of vitality and recklessness. 
Consider this: "Missing" is different than "has left". Someone who has left most likely has done so of their own volition, and most likely they are not coming back. There's a kind of finality to it. Whereas, to go missing is an unanswered question, a statement stopped in midsentence, a cat that has not come home. There's something incomplete about it, a hope that whatever has gone missing will one day be found, will return. 
August: I'm long done with housesitting but still ride my bike through Raul's neighborhood. There are new fliers on the telephone poles and stop signs. A part of me is annoyed, wants to tell Raul's people "just give it up and face up to the fact your cat is probably dead" and yet a part of me admires them for their tenacity, for not giving up.
September: I'm back housesitting again, and when Beanie and I walk  through the neighborhood I still see the fliers, alot of them are gone now, or faded, or torn but Raul's picture is still there, and I still get weepy. Who knows what happened to Raul, perhaps he was attacked by a dog or raccoons and crawled off to die under some bush; perhaps some callous neighbor got tired of him pooping in the garden and decided to relocate him; perhaps he ate poison, or ate the rat that ate the poison, or maybe he just wandered off, and somewhere there is an old kitty who is missing his persons as much as they are missing him. I hope Raul's story has a happy ending, or that his humans find closure. For myself, Raul has helped me to grieve what has gone missing in my own life. And is a reminder to never give up hope. I don't remember who said this but I think about it alot: "that for which you are searching, is also searching for you."