JEMISON, Ala. (WIAT) — An Alabama woman is filled with joy after learning her long-lost cat is alive. She is so close to having her cat back home safe, and yet so far.

It’s been two years Tracy Cost has waited for her sweet cat, Raven, to return. She was recently found alive, but not in Alabama. Instead, Raven trekked cross-country to Las Vegas.

Raven went missing in December 2021.

“I cried for days,” Cost said.

She never returned, but Cost didn’t lose hope.

“I went out every day searching for her — road the roads,” Cost said.

After two years of waiting, Cost finally received a call.

“To find out that she was alive, and I could get her back, that was everything to me,” Cost said.

But Raven had made it all the way to Las Vegas.

“We brought her over to PetSmart and had her scanned, and they said, ‘She’s got a chip, but it’s from Alabama,’” said Raven’s current caretaker, Elizabeth McGloin.

McGloin, who continues to foster Raven, is still in shock she made it all this way.

“She got picked up by a trucker or hopped in a trailer and traveled for a while,” McGloin said.

“I joke with people that she wanted to go gambling,” Cost said.

McGloin said she is so happy to have found her true owner.

“It’s always good when you can do something to make somebody happy or help them,” McGloin said. “Hence why anytime there’s a stray animal, I’m bringing it home and taking it to the store to get it chip checked, or I walk around the park with it until I find the owner.”

Cost said Raven means everything to her and wants her home so badly, but because of medical reasons and lack of funds, she nor McGloin can make the trip happen. Cost said she would be grateful for anyone willing to help her reunite with Raven.