The journey home is almost over for Nadia the cat. She made it from Sheboygan to Naples, Florida when she went missing on Christmas Eve.
How she did it, no one knows. But her family traveled to Rockford, Illinois to anxiously wait their reunion.
Cheri Stocker, Nadia's owner, has gotten used to waiting and watching and worrying.
Nadia went missing Christmas Eve when she escaped out the back door of her Sheboygan home. The family spent weeks searching the neighborhood. Cheri had feared the worst , but still left out a bowl of food every day hoping Nadia would come back. Finally, a call she never expected: Nadia had been found, in Florida.
"It was unbelievable," Cheri says.
But the next problem was - how to get her back?
Dozens of people offered to drive Nadia home. But an Allegiant Air worker had a better solution - a flight attendant that regularly flies in and out of the airport in Rockford, Illinois could bring Nadia home.
"How this was going to all fall together, amazing," says Cheri, shaking her head.
Cheri and her husband left their house at 5:30 this morning ready to see Nadia again. As passenger after passenger got off the plane, Cheri got more anxious.
Finally she saw the cat carrier.
"Oh my god," says Cheri.
With tears in her eyes she runs up and clutches it. She has Nadia again.
"I didn't think we would ever see her again so it's a miracle," says Cheri.
After seeing Nadia, Cheri ran over to one of the many strangers, now friends, who made the reunion possible.
"It's just I can't, I can't say thank you enough," Cheri says.
She says there were at least a half a dozen people who helped bring Nadia back home, each one asking nothing in return. She says she can never fully repay what has been done for her, so she plans to pay it forward in acts of kindness.
