Sorry for being MIA, it’s been tough to want to write the bad and ugly things of Tiny Town, but I knew I needed to get back on track here and that the bad was going to be part of this experience.
On a beautiful June morning (couple months ago), I woke up to texts coming into my phone. The Bird was out in the living room watching cartoons and eating her breakfast (yes, even at 5 she can do that herself). Several minutes later (approximately 15) I realized that I hadn’t heard the Bird let the cat in from his nightly hunting expedition. I thought that was odd. He normally gets let in in the mornings and comes in to wake me up, meowing loudly to tell me all about his adventures as he jumps on the bed for cuddles. That morning, he hadn’t done it.
I got up and went to the front door to let the dogs out and let Gru (the cat) in. He wasn’t at the door. Of course, my instincts kicked in because cats are creatures of habit. I attached the dogs to their leashes and stood up to look out into the front yard and road beyond, when suddenly I spied a familiar looking lump of fur laying in the road right in front of the house…
My heart sank and all the blood drained from my head.
My sweet Gru.
I immediately shut the door and tried to hold back the sobs as I informed my daughter that I needed to run outside for a few minutes but that I’d be back and under NO circumstances was she allowed to come outside. I could barely hold back the hysteria in my voice and she catches on easily. She started asking questions and I told her that she just had to stay put.
I ran out to the road and sure enough…. my sweet kitty was flayed open like a fish, insides all visible almost like a window had been cut into his side. He wasn’t moving, he was already gone, but it had JUST happened. The blood hadn’t congealed yet. The flies had just barely started to swarm.
I lost it, y’all.
I knew that if I’d just gotten up instead of sitting there answering my texts and looking at my stupid phone that I would have called him early enough to avoid it. But, instead, I made that fatal mistake of being distracted. And it cost me my crazy, sweet, loving, wild jungle cat.
I sat there crying, not knowing what to do. I called my husband who had gone out at about 5 am on a boys fishing trip with his brothers, father and grandpa and asked what I needed to do. He couldn’t help me, he was on a boat miles and miles away. He said that I needed to get Gru moved off the road and that was all that needed done.
I’m a city girl, people. Cats are people too. Not only could I not desecrate his poor feline body (for fear that all his guts would come pouring out of his body cavity in the moving process) but I also couldn’t get myself to do anything other than sit in the middle of the road, sobbing and petting my dead cat’s head.
I finally called my mother in law who came over and not only buried him properly, but also held me while I mourned. My poor baby.
This is the ugly side of living in the country. People fly down our road going about 55-60 mph, not caring about barn cats that run across the road, all day every day. They had no clue that the cat they hit wasn’t a barn cat, but a pet. They had no clue that I’d be the one to miss his quirky little personality. No clue that there would be a 5 year old little girl in tears because the kitty who was supposed to be around until she was college age had gone to heaven.
It has taken this long to write this because even now, months later, I cry just thinking about it. We made a lot of sacrifices to move out here and I’ve been accepting of them all, up until this point. And I don’t know how to bear this one.
Mermaid Out of Water 