Not Good, Not Good At All
Monday night I buried a kitten.
I was 'working' on my blog when
our neighbor knocked on the door. Ms. Virginia and her husband had a
ceramics company during his lifetime, and they made the most beautiful
painted animals I have ever seen in mass production. Her house is a
menagerie of these elegant little statues, I have never known such skill
in a home based endeavor before. She had brought home 4 kittens from
her friend's place, the friend was out of town and she was going to take
care of these little furballs in her friend's absence. I heard her
talking to my brother. I was already wearing my engineer boots, so I
went back to her house with her to see what had happened.
In the
back of her car there was a box of 3 crying kittens, and one that was
stretched out and cold. She told me she thought that one of the adult
cats had smothered it, and while that was possible sometimes a kitten
will just die. I know, this wasn't my first rodeo. We got the kittens
settled in with food, water and a litterbox in one of her spare
bathrooms, and then I took a shovel from her garage and went out to get
the dead kitty. I had a dishtowel I brought from home and slid the
little thing out onto it, it was stiff and saddening to look at. I took
the cat out behind her fence, technically that area is an alley but it
only runs behind her house, so she really just has a swath of empty yard
next to her fence. I dug down about a foot before a layer of oyster
shells kept me from digging deeper. I smoothed out the hole and made
the poor dead sweetie comfortable, and then filled in the grave. I
tamped down the dirt and then got some heavy tiles she has laying around
and scavenger proofed the area. Yesterday she took the three
remaining cats to a vet, now I go over there 3 times a day to force
their various medicines down their throats. They are already looking
fatter and their fur is shinier, and their screams reach unto the
heavens themselves, yeah and verily. I am in the midst of raising 8
kitties I didn't ask for but that God saw fit to send me, and I'm
stunned that I want to bring home 3 more.
Put the rubber mouse away,
Pick the spools up from the floor,
What was velvet shod, and gay,
Will not want them, any more.
What was warm, is strangely cold.
Whence dissolved the little breath?
How could this small body hold
So immense a thing as Death?
Sara Henderson Hay
The grave has been untouched for these last two days, at least the cat lies in quiet and dignity. That's not much, but it's something.
I really like cats.
But it's not all sorrow and heartbreak here. I took the header photo from one of my micro-essays about pictures of 'pity kitties' that my colleague Andibi of the sparkling wit and excellent deer mythos collects and now I am including a section of it to lighten this morbid essay on the unfairness of life.
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