A year and a half ago seems far away, and it was during that time in August that my son’s wish for a cat of his own came true. As a family we adopted Popeye out of a local shelter on his birthday. Just a kitten, he slowly began to show how he fitted right in with the kids. Popeye was a beautiful cat, silver-grey from head to toe, with golden-green eyes. One day, after a short trip with the family, Popeye was let out, like always, for some fresh air. After a short time, my son came out and mentioned that he was worried because his cat had not come back when he called for him. Sadly, Popeye was missing from that moment onwards.

As is normal in such cases, we checked Popeye’s microchip registration and reported him missing on PetLink and Craigslist. We put up signs and made fruitless visits to shelters every month for seven months in the hope of finding him. Both my son and my daughter never stopped praying every night, hoping that Popeye was in safe hands and would return while I simply didn’t think a cat would ever be able to come home. One day my son said, ‘When we prayed mom, you didn’t mention Popeye. If you don’t pray he won’t ever return.’ I apologized to my son and promised I would mention Popeye in my prayers from then on.

Time passed until on July 21, 2014, I received a text from PetLink simply reading: ‘Petfinder – we have found your pet. Please contact the following number.’ My first thought was ‘What pet?’ In the last few months there was a stray cat who appeared to have adopted us but, other than that, I wondered, could they have made a mistake? A few moments later I received a phone call and the caller said, ‘Mrs. Fearon, we have someone who brought in a cat with an injury and when we scanned him it said you were the owner. He’s grey and striped.’

I was so shocked I could not believe what I was hearing! Apparently, there was an older lady who had picked Popeye up and cared for him during the last couple of months. Then, she brought him in to a vet for a check up and – behold – the cat turned out to be our Popeye. She was heartbroken, but was quick to return Popeye to his very anxious owners. The most amazing thing was that she said she thought Popeye was a girl! All this time, she had been calling him a different name! I looked at her and asked, ‘What did you call him?’ She said, ‘Bella – why?’ I said, ‘It’s funny you called him that, because that’s my daughter’s name!’ Needless to say, the man upstairs does work in mysterious ways… We are very blessed to have been reunited with Popeye after a year and a half and so grateful to the lady who cared for our cat and loved him so much.