A miracle happened today. I almost never use the word "miracle." But there are no other words to describe it...it was miraculous.

I opened my patio's glass sliding door to air out the apartment. 15 minutes or so later when I go to close it, the screen door is open as well. I ask David, "why is the screen door open?" David replies, "Oh shit!" That's when I realized that our ferret Jake had opened it.

David and I both stared at the bottom of our patio fence. We stared at the spaces he could have possibly crawled under. Then we searched for him outside. It's dark and cold, and I don't hear any rustling in the bushes. David and I separate to different sides of the apartment complex. I had a gut feeling he went to one particular side, so I followed my gut, but didn't follow it far enough. I stopped short of the sidewalk and street...too short. I think I stopped because I already sort of gave up - it had only been a few minutes. It wasn't the time I spent searching that made me give up, it was the darkness and the abundance of bushes surrounding me. The odds were against us and I accepted it so easily.

So I turned back only to hear David, "I found him!" I ran to them, so happy and so relieved. A neighbor had spotted him on the sidewalk and saw that he had walked into the street. A girl was parking her car and Jake was under it. He could have been ran over, but he wasn't. He could have been lost forever, but he's not. David found him on the street that I was heading towards, but stopped short.

It was a miracle tonight that we found him. And though the ending is happy, it wasn't my courage and conviction that saved him. If I had walked farther, searched harder, David and I would have found him together. I'm just disappointed in myself that I failed to try. And I'm worried that this is a personality trait of mine that is not conducive to a career in medicine. Well, something I got to work on.