Those That Came Back

My mom ran over our cat with her truck. This happened a long time ago when we were little. She was backing up and ran over our big, fat cat, Carmel. I ran over a squirrel once and can only imagine the feeling beneath the floor of the vehicle. Gross. To be fair my mom didn't do it on purpose - it was an accident. It just happened. We lived with lots of animals always under foot. Or under vehicle tires. So it was possible, and also probable, that running over a cat would potentially, someday, more than likely, actually happen.

I suppose the miners in Chile weren't exactly stunned at the collapse. They knew it might, probably, someday happen. Maybe not to them, but still.

Our cat limped off, crooked, bleeding, screaming into the pasture, out to the field and into the unknown. Days passed. We tried to convince ourselves maybe it wasn't that bad. We went out to look for her but found nothing. We told ourselves if we just kept looking we would find her and then we could help her, but more days passed. And then weeks. And then months.

We resigned ourselves to the fact that our cat was lost. Our beautiful white and tan lazy cat was gone. It was just the way it was. With one foot in front of the other we went on.

And then, just like that, one afternoon the cat came back. A little gimpy, but there she was! Looking as good as ever. We hugged her and squeezed her and told everyone we knew the miracle of Carmel. She was alive! We would never know exactly where she went or how she was able to heal herself, but it didn't matter - she was home!
I cannot begin to fathom  the overwhelming emotional roller coaster of those miners and their families. Missing for weeks, underground for months... I mean, I was a basket case over a cat.