This happened about a week ago.
It was four in the morning, still a long time until daylight, when he started the car and headed for the airport. Takeoff on his flight from their Ohio home to California wasn’t until 6:30, but there was luggage, TSA, and always the possibility of traffic.
He was fifteen minutes into the hour long drive to the airport when he heard the kitten. Usually he listened to music, something uplifting and inspirational, but this morning he was traveling in silence. He knew as soon as he heard the cat it was either Hope or Jack Jack hitching a ride, probably hidden somewhere in the engine compartment.
A few weeks earlier his two oldest children, two little girls ten and eight years old, had finally succeeded in wearing down his resistance to getting a cat. He was allergic, and made it clear the cats would be outdoor pets. He built an enclosure for the front porch to give them shelter from the rain and heat of the July days, and they had been settling in since coming home. His daughters were happy with their new pets and things seemed to be going well. The cats liked being outside and his allergies were under control.
He pulled over and, after a short search, found Jack Jack and called his wife. He didn’t have time to return the cat and still make his flight, so she left the four children asleep and met him, picked up Jack Jack, and headed home. She told him she and the kids would look for Hope later on, when everyone was up. He drove on to the airport, parked in the long-term section, and boarded his plane for the five day business trip to California.
Hope was nowhere to be found when the family searched for her. They looked everywhere they could think of, Jack Jack helping as much as she could, but the kitten was not to be found. Neighbors were called, but no one had seen Hope. A feeling of sadness began to grow in the family.
By lunch they had begun to think Hope was gone for good. As a last resort, they asked a family friend who lived close to the airport to drive over and look around the parking garage. He looked for several long minutes after finding the location of the parked car, and was ready to give up when, in desperation, found a recording of a cat meowing on the internet and played it on his phone. In a moment Hope came out from wherever she was hiding, looking for the other cat.
Miracles come in all sizes. Sometimes they are huge, the stuff of legend, told and retold down through the years. Soldiers surviving firefights that should have taken them, people falling from airplanes and receiving a couple of broken bones and no other injuries, people with crippling medical bills winning the lottery.
Sometimes they’re as small as a kitten hitching an hour long ride in the family car and staying around after the car is parked long enough to be found by a family friend.
I’ve always been particularly appreciative of the small ones.