Apr. 28...the 6-year anniverary of....

I still remember all of this as if it were yesterday, and it still hurts.
Overnight--Apr. 27th/28th, 2003--Socks and Jerry both disappeared.
Monday, Apr. 28th, 2003: I had overslept slightly, so I really didn't have time to count kitty noses as I flew out of the house to go to work, but I did notice that two of the cats were missing--Socks and Jerry.
There was really nothing I could do, though, until I got home from work. So when I got home, I asked my roommate/boyfriend if he'd seen either Socks or Jerry, because I hadn't. Nope. No sign of either.
So the first thing I did was to go out on the patio and do everything that I could think of that might get one or both of them back. I swept the patio. Jerry loves to chase things (i.e., a moving broom), and I think Socks did also. Then I gave them a small saucer of milk, which either missing cat would have loved and come running to get. Likewise with the crunchies I gave them. Both missing cats loved crunchies. Jerry still does. Nothing worked. Nothing brought either cat out of hiding. So, my next idea was that if I went for a walk through the neighborhood and called their names and looked in every corner that I could legally get away with looking in, maybe they'd come home after they heard me calling their names. But...again, no luck.
I went to bed that night feeling like I didn't even want to go to sleep. My Jerry, and his brother Socks, were missing, and I was afraid that if I let myself sleep through the night, I'd miss out on being sure that they returned home safe and sound. It was the beginning of four and a half weeks (as it were) of feeling like a walking, talking wreck.
More later.
Oh--here's a picture of my Tony and Jerry at about 3 months old...in 2001, and also a picture of Mup and me, from 2004 (sorry for the poor quality!!).