Many years ago, I moved from one city to another.

I had a cat with me, and my cat got out the door of the new house, got lost and didn't return home.

I was devasted. I felt so guilty for moving and uprooting my little guy from the place where he knew and was happy. I missed him and felt sick inside and cried and cried.

I began putting out flyers all over the area around my new house, asking anyone who might have seen my cat, to please let me know.

So, I'm at home and the phone rings.

A male (young?) asks if I'm the person who lost the cat. I reply that I am.

"Good," he says. "I found your cat and killed it."

He hung up.

I knew, basically, that the caller was a mean, sick "prankster." I knew that this pathetic person was just someone who lacked the intelligence and the ability to connect on a human and humane level. I knew that this person lacked pretty much everything that made life on earth joyful. (What I didn't know then, but do now, is that this person had probably endured a dysfunctional upbringing and suffered from internal, emotional injury.)

Knowing all this didn't prevent me from dissolving into disconnected molecules, there by the phone. All I wanted was to hold my sweet cat in my arms once more, and here I am being told that someone thought telling me it had been found and purposefully killed was the high point of their day.

I never saw my cat again. I hope he became beloved by someone else, somewhere in my new city. But to this day, though I live elsewhere now, when I drive over the highway entrance and exit ramps of that city, I worry that my cat was killed by a car or died of starvation in an alley.

I never believed the caller that day, but I got a taste of the lengths sick people will go to get off.

It's a shame when they find us, but since that day, here's what I've learned: if we maintain appropriate, solid boundaries against cruelty, stupidity and abuse, we'll be alright.

Peace to all survivors, out there.

My best to you this day, and always.

Ilene