Pussy Cat Pussy Cat Whoah!

So yesterday I heard the oddest noise coming from the cat food bag. And my instant thought was "Oh Baby must be hungry!" The problem was it's not baby. It's our cat Lilly(pictured above.). Baby was a cat we lost a few years back.
She was a cat that Seth bought me as a wedding present, and since she was our first Baby....hence the name. She was a beautiful tan and black striped Abysinnian. She had so much personality! I used to work at PetSmart and when I closed I would bring her in with me and she would roam and play all over the store. but her favorite part was the car rides to and from home.
She traveled across the country with us twice. Eventually over the years she became an outside cat. She was uber protective of my son when he was born. She would sleep under his crib, or at the foot of anything that he had fallen asleep on. She wouldn't even let our dog Taicie (Our second baby) near Caden. One day...about 3 years ago, Baby came in and got a bath. I took off her collar and set it on the sink and after her bath she went and sat in the sun under window. When my husband came home from work I realized that she had snuck out...sans collar.
We never saw her again. The worst part...I have no idea what happened to her.
I know that animals come and go but the not knowing has killed me for years. Did someone steal her? Was she hit by a car? Somehow got lost? I'll never know.
It was then that I made I recalled a memory from my childhood...
A a dark street, lit up by lamps, all of us kids worn out and coming back in side from playing to shower and crawl into bed. In the midst of our parents calming us down there is a knock at the door. A man is standing there crying and holding my sister's cat, Jenny, in his hands. She had run out in front of his car and he had not seen her in time to miss her. She died instantly. That was not the first time we had to deal with losing a pet, nor was it the last. But it as the most impressionable.
This man came to us and told us what happened. He apologized. He gave us closure. He was a brave brave man.
I made a vow, if I am ever in a similar situation I will always look as hard as possible to find the owner. Put up fliers even.
When your pets become your children, it feels like a part of you is missing when they are gone. And it is still very hard to get over. Something that I am still trying to do.