Late one evening, hectic as usual in the office, I received a call from my sister. Upon answering, tears rolled down my cheeks, my colleagues were stunned and I felt my heart skip a beat. My dog, a shih-tzu breed, name Joshua, ran out of the house an hour earlier while my dad was driving his car out and he had not returned. He had done this before but once we call out his name he would return. This time, I guess he wanted to wander even longer and must have strayed further than his usual distance. As my dad had an appointment to keep, he had no choice but to close the gate and drive off thinking Joshua would come back and wait at the gate like he usually did.
There was no one else at home as my mum was in Singapore attending an office related course and my younger sister was not back from college. My dad had called my sister and informed her about what had happened and hoped she would be home soon and Joshua would be waiting for her at the gate. I dashed out of the office, got into my car and sped home. I turned the radio on; coincidentally it was playing Mr. Lonely by Akon. I was moved by the song thinking how lonely Joshua would be outside in the dark trying to find his way back home. I cried my heart out while driving home.
We started searching for him, calling out his name. Poor little dog, we rarely took him out of the house. Undeniably he would not know his way back hence we were fearful that people might kidnap him as there have been such cases. Dogs like Joshua are small in size and very adorable. Such dogs that go missing are never usually found as there is demand for pets like these. What the dog-nappers do is to find a buyer who is willing to pay a good price for them and sell them off. The unfortunate thing is that there are people who sadly are willing to buy such pets knowing that these are actually lost or stolen ones considering that the sellers do not have any official documents for the pets. There are also those who upon finding a lost pet would quietly draw them to their homes and keep them for themselves.
I could not sleep that night and kept looking out of the window to see if there was any sign of Joshua. As my sister and I awaited the coming of dawn to continue looking for him, my sister said, “Yesterday I told mum, since you were going overseas to further your studies, I would look for a job within this area and not move out of the house, so I would be around to take care of Joshua, and now I have no idea where he is.” I said, “We took care of him very well, bought toys for him, played with him daily, when he felt warm, we turned the air-conditioner on and everyone liked him. We will not give up, we will definitely find him.”
The next morning, I printed posters and handed them to the guards in the neighbourhood. My dad, sister and I continued to search for him including some of our neighbours. For two days, I could not eat nor sleep, but just cried and viewed pictures of him on my mobile phone. My parents were extremely upset and shed tears. Friends and relatives were shaken by the news as he was such an adorable dog. Some of them even prayed for his safe return and my mum went to church every morning while she was in Singapore and prayed that Joshua would be found.
My mum kept calling home often to check on us and on the second night she said, “Maybe Joshua has found a family that would take care of him better with someone at home throughout the day to play with him since we are all working.” My reply was, “He is my brother, and no way would a family member think like that, he is your son too, mom.”
On the third day, we received a call from one of the guards that there was a small dog lying under a stationery car away from the heat of the sun; my dad went and to his delight found that it was Joshua. He was so weak and exhausted that he could hardly stand let alone walk. I took time off from work when I heard the good news rushed to my sister’s college, picked her up and rushed home. He looked wretched and scraggy as he had not eaten for two whole days. He must have been traumatised being out in the dark for days as he had always been kept indoors. Tears were rolling as I was so glad to see him, I hugged and kissed him. I fed him his food and gave him some milk. Few hours later, my mum arrived and was surprised to see the dog back home. My mum said to the dog, “My darling boy, I went for few days overseas on work matters, and you decided to go for a short vacation, leaving everyone at home crying including your dad.” All of us burst into laughter while playing with him. That night, he slept with my sister and me in the room. My dog is like my little brother and he even carries the family name of Gomez i.e Joshua Gomez.
Miracles do happen. All one needs to do is to have complete trust in God.
