Aven isn’t lost. I was.

The vow

For twenty-three years, I went out so others could come home.

Navy search and rescue, then two decades at sea with the Military Sealift Command. The job was simple to say and hard to do: when someone is missing, you go — through the dark, through the weather — so that others may live.

I’m retired now, and disabled, and I carry that vow the way you carry a watch you can’t put down. It doesn’t expire when the uniform comes off. It just goes looking for whoever needs bringing home next.

What I didn’t expect was that the one who needed bringing home was me — and that a cat would be the one to do it. Aven wasn’t something I rescued. He was teaching me presence. Teaching me attention. Teaching me how to actually be here, in the room, in the hour, instead of somewhere out ahead of myself. Then he slipped out the door, and the search began — and the search turned out to be the lesson too.

He was never just a cat. Honestly, he’s more not a cat than he is one — still discovering what he is and what he wants to be. Same as me.

Who he is

The one who brought me back.

Aven is an F1 Savannah — half African serval, all heart. He came into my life when things were hard, and he did the thing a good rescuer does: he stayed. “Emotional support animal” is the clinical way of saying he gave me a reason to get up in the morning.

We’d only just moved to Panama City Beach this past April — new apartment, new air, the Gulf out past the dunes. He was still learning the place. So was I. Then on May 19th, he slipped out, and the place he doesn’t know yet swallowed him up.

Tall, lean, tawny, with a long banded tail and ears like radar dishes. People who glimpse him in the brush swear they’ve seen a bobcat. He’s not. He’s a friendly, harness-trained housecat who comes when you talk to him — unless you chase him. Then he’s gone.

Aven curled up safe at home, showing his spotted coat

The search

I’m working it like any other rescue.

Lost cats don’t run far. They go to ground — silent, frightened, hidden, waiting for the world to go quiet. So I work the edges of the day: first light and last light, when a scared cat finally moves. That grid gave me his first month. Then the trail bent east — a credible caller put him across the bay in Old Callaway in early July, holding to the ditch lines and the bayou the way his blood tells him to. So the search runs two boards now: home ground here, and the corridor over there. Cameras, feeding stations, and shoe leather on both.

// The 5-second check

It’s himRound black spots on gold · very tall ears · banded tail, dark tip

Not himStripes anywhere · white chest · white paws — thank you for checking

Looks likePeople honestly mistake him for a small bobcat. That call counts too.

1
Don’t chase him. If he runs, you lose him. Slow, low, quiet — or just hold still.
2
Get a photo if you can, even a bad one. It tells me it’s really him.
3
Mark the spot and the time, then call or text me — any hour, no questions asked.

// Field log

Last seenTue 19 May 2026, ~3:40 PM

WhereHorizon South, Bldg 8B‑3, PCB FL

Also reportedOld Callaway, 32404 — Jul 4–6

MicrochipYes — flagged LOST · number confirms by phone

Police casePCBPD 2621723

OfficerN. Gamboa #60

Contact(260) 337‑3747

StatusACTIVE — reward offered

The pathway near Building 8B-3 where Aven was last seen — Last seen — the pathway by 8B‑3

Palms, fence line and brush near the property — the kind of cover a frightened cat hides in — The cover he’s likely in

If you’ve seen him

Even a maybe helps.

No questions asked. A reward is waiting. If you’ve seen a spotted “wildcat” in a yard, a garage, a shed, under a deck — tell me where and when. The smallest lead is worth more than you know.

(260) 337‑3747

Call now Text now

Prefer to write it out? Fill this in and it opens an email to me — nothing is posted publicly.

Your name

Best way to reach you

Where you saw him

When

What you saw

Or email directly: wherewithal@sehvan.com · You can also report through the PawBoost listing.

And if he’s been staying with you — if a friendly spotted cat adopted your porch this summer and became part of your home — thank you for keeping him safe. No questions, no trouble, ever. He has a medical condition that needs care only his records can continue. Walk him into any vet or shelter anonymously and the chip scan does the rest — or just call. You’ll have done a good thing twice.

The name

It was in front of my face the whole time.

This is the part I’m still not over. I went looking for a word for the thing I’ve been building — the safe places, the sanctuary. The word that came was havens. And then I actually looked at it.

sehvan

My name. I’ve carried it my whole life.

aven

His name. Already inside mine.

havens

And the word for what we’ve been making together. The same letters as Sehvan, rearranged. His name, sitting right in the middle of it.

That’s the irony of the whole thing, and it’s the lesson he was teaching me. Presence. Attention. Slowly discovering what was already right in front of my face — my own name, his name, and the sanctuary hiding inside both.

So HAVENS isn’t branding. It’s just what it’s always been called. And it’s the work: while I look for mine, I feed the ones nobody’s looking for. There’s a colony near me — strays and ferals the world stopped counting. Every morning and every dusk, they eat. Safe places, where cats like these are fed, sheltered, and seen.

A haven isn’t a place you find. It’s a place you make — for whoever is still becoming.

Stand the watch with me

Help me keep them fed.

Flyers and listings are for bringing Aven home. This is for the others — the food, the traps, the vet care for cats who have no one. If his story moved you, this is how it becomes a full bowl at first light.

$15

A week of food for the colony.

$40

A humane trap & a safe spay/neuter run.

$100

Vet care for a cat who’d otherwise go without.

Give with Venmo Give with PayPal

Every dollar goes to food, traps, and care — nothing else. You’re not donating to a logo. You’re standing a watch with me. — Sehvan

The log

Dispatches from the search.

I’ll keep this updated as it goes — what I tried, what I’m seeing, where to point next. Newest first.

Day 64

The system stands up.

The address on everything is one name now — avenlost.pet, bought and pointed here. Five signs and a stack of pamphlets are at the printer: his face on the front, his spots on the back, and a green you can read from a moving car. If one lands in your hands, it worked.

Day 64

East, then.

The marsh grid gave back nothing more, and a caller who’d never met us described him anyway — across the bay, Old Callaway, holding to the ditch lines like his blood tells him to. So the search runs two boards now: home ground here, and the corridor over there. The bowl is still set.

Day 54

Still on it.

Cameras are up, the colony’s fed, and I’m walking the grid at first and last light. If you’re local and you’ve seen anything — even weeks ago — tell me. Old leads still matter.

Day 1

He slipped out near 8B‑3.

Late afternoon on the 19th, he got past me by the corner pathway. Filed the police report that night and flagged his microchip lost. A frightened cat holes up close — so the search starts here, in tight, and works outward.

Why this page

So he has more than a phone number.

A flyer says ‘lost cat, call this number.’ Aven is more than that to me, and the cats I feed are more than a number too. This is the whole story, kept in one place, updated as it goes.

The print kit

Take the search with you.

Every set of hands multiplies this. Print a few, leave them where people wait — a counter, a break room, a church table, a grandmother’s fridge. The pamphlet folds in thirds; his face goes on the outside.

The flyer

One page, any printer. The fastest way to put him on a wall.

Download flyer (PDF)

The pamphlet

One sheet, both sides, folds in three. Three tellings of the same search — pick the one that fits the hands you’ll put it in.

Signal Journal Witness

The stories

This is only the start.

Aven has stories in him — the kind you’d read to a kid at the end of the day, about a creature who isn’t quite what anyone expects and is still figuring out what he wants to be. That’s coming. So are the colony cats, each by name. Everything below grows from here.

Him

He never cared about stuff.

Toys stayed in the basket. What he wanted was you — the chase down the hallway, the ambush from behind the door, the game that never really ended. When he comes home, the welcome won’t be a new bed. It’ll be play.

Coming

The Aven stories

Illustrated stories about a creature who isn’t quite a cat and isn’t quite anything else — still working out what he is, and what he wants to be. For kids, and for whoever else needs to hear it.

The colony

The dusk regulars

The ones who appear at last light, every evening, knowing the bowl will be full. They each have a name. You’ll meet them here.

The havens

Building the sanctuary

Safe places where cats like these are fed, sheltered, and seen. This is the long work — and I’ll show it to you as it gets built.