Miracles

A pause from the election chatter to ponder miracles, giving up, restoration, the unexpected.

This morning during the drudgery of cleaning the cat box in the basement, I noticed something small moving toward me, something coming from behind the ironing board and the cat litter bucket, something with a very sweet face and very bright eyes: our hamster Piknecon (pronounced pinecone). Startled and almost afraid to breathe, I picked her up and welcomed her back into the fold. How can a human heart fill with joy over the return of a missing hamster? But it does. I carried her upstairs to show Little Bear and Frank, who likewise could hardly believe their eyes. We took turns holding and stroking her. Then, I fetched her cage, which had been relegated to the basement but not changed since the day she went missing, September 10, 2008. I remember, because it was the day the Hadron Collider started up. Her disappearance had been bizarre: a completely closed cage, no signs of where she'd gone (droppings, blood trails if the cat had gotten her, etc.), no confessions from family of having left it open and later closed it.

Her appearance in that part of the basement, so far from where her cage had been upstairs in the living room is astonishing. Her survival after all this time is equally mysterious and astonishing.

Oddly enough, after 1 1/2 months away from us, she essentially came to my voice, did not fuss when I picked her up, and seemed very, very happy to be held and petted. She is resting in a pile of shavings in her cage. Home.

The cat has been exonerated, and her strange little dance around me, trying to get me to go to the basement (I thought to fill the food bowl or empty the litter box) has now been explained.

Welcome home, Piknecon!