We've previously posted Oliver's picture and details on some local Facebook pages — the one thing Facebook is actually still vaguely useful for — and earlier today we took around a bunch of flyers to the houses and flats in the nearby vicinity. In the mid-afternoon I got a call from someone down the road; they weren't sure it was Oliver, but they had definitely seen a ginger cat on their back wall recently, and thought that he was "a very friendly chap".

Now, we're trying not to get our hopes up too much, because we know there is another ginger cat in the neighbourhood. The lady who called sounded like she hadn't seen the cat she saw before, however, which leads me to believe that it might, just might have been Oliver. There's also the fact that Andie has apparently encountered "the other ginger cat" and said that it was rather skittish as opposed to friendly; Oliver, meanwhile, has always got along with absolutely everyone he meets, and the personality of the cat our caller described very much sounded like him.

So we have not given up. We cannot give up. I refuse to give up. My heart is battered and bruised and broken from the last few days, and it is difficult to derive any joy from anything. But I cannot give up. I will not give up. He must be out there somewhere, and all we need to do is bring him home.

I do not yet know how we are going to do that, or indeed where he is. But this one little happening today helped me feel just one little spark of hope about the whole situation, and that is something that has been sorely needed since late on Sunday night.

I, of course, do not know how this particular episode of our lives is going to turn out. There is always the possibility that it will end in tragedy, and that is something I don't think I am prepared for. But, as my therapist has said to me on multiple occasions now, I am a survivor, and while I have faced many hardships on life's journey to date, I have made it through all of them so far.

I don't want to have to keep being a survivor, though. I want things to be nice, and happy, and free of worry, and neat. Life, however, is far from neat; simple existence is one of the messiest things imaginable, and I have not yet figured out how — or even if it's possible — to tidy it up.

And so, we continue. For now, we continue, not knowing. Tonight we will walk the streets once again in search of our beloved little man. And tomorrow is another day, whatever that might bring.

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The post #oneaday Day 725: A spark of hope appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.