Woman continues searching for her treasured pet cat, Phoenix
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on March 9, 2015 1:46 PM
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Phoenix had a habit of sleeping in the crook of his owner Mary Lou Park's legs at night. Each morning, he would snuggle a bit with Mrs. Park then jump up in the bathroom window to go out exploring in the woods behind the house.
The morning of Aug. 8, 2014, Mrs. Park snuggled with Phoenix and then let him out as normal. That was the last time she saw her beloved cat. He disappeared and hasn't been home since.
"He would always go out into the woods for about an hour, then I would call him back into the house." Mrs. Park said. "He loved to go on the trails in back of our house."
That fateful morning, Mrs. Park noticed some men from the gas company out by the woods. Thinking maybe Phoenix had been frightened by their presence, Mrs. Park spent all day trying to find her cat with the help of some neighbors.
Phoenix, like the rest of Mrs. Park's menagerie, was a rescue. She and her daughter both have lake houses in Meadow in southern Johnston County. One morning, Mrs. Park's daughter went for a walk and when she came back, found a tiny kitten crying its head off, Mrs. Park said.
"Someone had dropped Phoenix off and he was just a baby," she said. "So my husband and I took him."
Mrs. Park's daughter named him Phoenix because he rose from the ashes, coming out of nowhere.
Phoenix had a Siamese head and circles on each side of his body that resembled bullseye circles. He had stripes on his legs and also on his tail -- quite the exotic looking feline.
"He was most unusual," Mrs. Park said. "He loved people and wasn't shy with anyone."
Mrs. Park said Phoenix loved to ride down with her and her husband to the lake house every weekend.
"I still have his pillow in the back seat of our car," she said. "He loved to go to the lake house. He stayed right around the house down there. Frequently he would go into our little screened in area on the pier down by the lake and he'd just sit there with us. He just loved being there and we loved having him."
Phoenix also loved to chase ice.
"Phoenix would hear the ice machine in the refrigerator and he would run to the refrigerator to get a little piece of ice to chase around the kitchen," Mrs. Park said.
"He was the cat of my life. I'm over 70 and have loved cats and raised them all my life. I've had to euthanize cats I've adored that had been with me 15 and 20 years. But Phoenix was a treasure. I can't get over losing him. He was my four-legged baby."
Phoenix was just 4-years-old when he disappeared back in August.
"I wake up during the night thinking about him and how if I had just kept him in that morning, he'd still be with me," Mrs. Park said. "There's no replacement for him. It's a part of my life that I would love to do over. You don't know how much you miss something until it leaves you."
Mrs. Park put out fliers offering a $1,000 reward for his return, with no results. She is still offering that reward.
"Phoenix had a very good life, running and playing and just being a kitty," she said. "He was the type of cat that loved adventure and he found some apparently."
Anyone who finds Phoenix is asked to call Mrs. Park at 919-584-5883.