Almost lost my cat

I was on holyday with my wife and family and our cat stayed at my mum’s. He’s a calm cat and doesn’t have fingers, he was born this way and it’s not a problem at all since he lives in an apartment with us and doesn’t need to climb o jump particularly high. He is quite used to stay at my mum’s but, of course, he doesn’t like it so much.

Yesterday we landed at 10.30 and I called my mum saying we were abt to come and pick up the cat, she was almost crying saying she forgot to close a window and he had escaped, she found out at 1AM. I started crying at the airport, my wife also, we didn’t know what to do. We rushed to my mum’s home and we started searching, under the rain in a freezing weather.

We spent 6 hours straight jumping fances to get into the villas that didn’t answer the bell, we looked everywhere, we called our names out loud to meet, cry a bit, and we went back searching.

I know many people won’t understand but I never felt a bigger desperation, we were so shocked we kept walking but I felt like we had lost him forever.

At the end we split again and after an hour or so She called me saying she found him. I sat in the middle of the street and started crying.

I’m still shocked and I need to process what happened but deep down I’ve never been happier.

This thing also brought so much love I can’t even explain. My dad who’s not together with my mum received a text from her at 1AM and started searching with her until 2PM, my parents in law printed photos of the cat and posted all around our neighborhood, my brother helped me. My aunt who was like my best friend when I was younger before we had a huge fight and stopped talking to eachother came searching aswell. My mum who was more shocked than us and kept searching for 17 hours straight.

I don’t even know how to describe what I’m feeling rn, I’m still scared from what could have happened and still shocked for what I experienced but at the same time I feel my heart is full of love and gratitude. It may has been the more shocking and desperate day of my life and the happiest at the same time.