Lost...and found?

Recently, a friend’s 17-year-old dog, Toby, went missing after a handyman left her front gate open. Toby, who is accustomed to the large, fenced garden of "home," wandered out into the virtual unknown. On discovering that he was gone, my friend and her husband launched a search party, but he was nowhere to be found.

Daily, we searched by car, bike and on foot – venturing into dense bushes, down side streets and previously unexplored dirt tracks, conversing with people who once were merely passing faces.

Hearing that Toby was 17 years old, everyone expressed concern, vowing to look out for him.

Posters with Toby’s photo, and my friend’s and my phone numbers, were placed throughout the community – on store windows and wooden telephone poles. Soon, virtually the whole community knew about this missing brown dog.

Reports rolled in.

“A brown dog walked by on my security camera,” one shopkeeper informed, referring to potentially any one of a multitude of brown Tobago canines.

Thirty minutes after receiving the flyer, one vendor called: “Come! There’s a dog just like him!”

The brownish dog liming near his stall looked nothing like Toby.

Another excited caller reported a dog “looking just like him” in Crown Point. A hopeful search revealed two brown dogs, but no Toby.

“We now know all brown dogs in the area,” my friend commented, amused but disappointed.

Being old, had Tony wandered off to die? As days passed, I began "looking" with my nose as well, for (God forbid) the stench of potential decomposition.

A concerned friend WhatsApped me, sending a prayer to St Aparicio – “a Saint who helps locate lost things.”

Early on the morning of day five, before going to search, I recited part of that prayer: “St Apparicio, make it appear. Make Toby appear.”

On my way back home about an hour later, a man living two houses away from the lane leading to Toby’s home called out: “The dog was here! Check the garden across the road!”

“He was here!” the woman of the house called from the verandah. “I think he gone in the back!”

Ploughing through the thick cane patch at the back, calling “Toby,” I came upon a flattened "nest" of cane. Had something of Toby’s size been lying there for a long time? Very possible, as the cane patch was a cool, moist oasis within parched dry season environs.

While I was taking a photograph of the "nest" to show to my friend, she called to let me know that Toby was at home. Days of intense worry melted, replaced by relief and joy. Two little boys, walking with their kite, had seen him in a drain (obliquely across from the house with the cane patch) very near to his home. Aware of the posters, the boys had alerted my friend and, upon her arrival, they helped her to retrieve Toby from the drain.

We live in times when lost/missing people (mainly women and children) seem as common as lost/missing dogs. Whenever I witness the trauma experienced by owners of lost pets, I often think of the trauma of families with missing loved ones. The torturous pain of not knowing screams out for resolution and closure, regardless of the species of the missing party.

A few mornings ago the granddaughter of someone I know woke up to find that everyone was at home...except for Granny and their pet dog. Concerned, she ripped a piece of paper from a copybook and, with a red ink pen, quickly created a drawing (featured as today’s illustration) meant to depict a woman and a dog.

Upon returning from their walk, Granny and dog met the concerned granddaughter, standing in the yard, clutching her masterpiece. She explained that it was a poster of "missing Granny and pet," to show to anyone who passed by.

While her granddaughter’s innocent concern and proactive follow-up action of course made her grandmother’s day, the story hints at an underlying current, an awareness of sinister occurrences that most likely runs through the minds of our nation’s children.

Upon mentioning this to my friend, she agreed, commenting that the same thought had occurred to her upon seeing her granddaughter’s illustration.

“She is very perceptive,” she said. “She overhears adult conversations about people going missing, like Andrea Bharatt...and her mind does its own processing.”

Lost pets...lost people...lost innocence. O that all could be found and returned.