So Now We're Getting a Kitten

Monday's are never good. Seeing her lying in the road meant not only was this Monday going to be shitty, so was the whole damn week.

And it was.

She was the best of cats we've ever had. Out of the four, she was the only we actually liked on a regular basis. She wasn't one of the ones pissing all over the carpets and spraying the couches. She was friendly and always had a tail-tingle to share when she was happy. But that morning, all of that came to an end. The missus, on her way to work and me, wrestling with the girl who was in no mood to go to daycare, were going about our lives as normal. Then I heard "Oh my god, oh my god, no!" I grabbed the girl and met the missus at the end of the driveway. In the middle of the road was our kitty.

Guilt swept over me. She dashed the door the night before when I was letting the dogs in. I called for her before I went to bed; she didn't come. I knew one of us would wake up in the middle of the night and let our poor, appreciative kitty in. No one woke up.

I've dug a few pet graves in my life. My first was a small hole for a gold fish when I was four or five. I watched mom plant an old siamese in the flower bed when her time came and went. In the valley, I dug a grave for an unfortunate stray as well as one of our beloved cats. There've been more before that; remembering all of them is tough. One of the toughest was for a cat I rescued in high school. Between the anguish and the sandstone, I chipped away at the ground for nearly two hours after soccer practice to dig a pitiful two foot hole.

I found a nice place near an apple tree and started to dig. At first I was pissed at her. Why did she have to dash the door? Why didn't she come in? Why did she happen to be crossing the road at that time? When I went to grab my coffee, I asked her why, like some dumb, soft-hearted, mush-brained child. Lying in the shade where I set her, I was just met with her dead, blank stare.

The deeper I dug, the more the realization she was gone came over me. Once in the whole, no matter how square the corners were and flat the sides, she wasn't coming back. I cried big hard tears, like I did last summer on my way home from work and when I had to leave the girl and the missus every Sunday. The whole reason we brought her home was because at the shelter she crawled on my shoulder and chose me. She wouldn't leave me alone. And when we finally got her home, she thanked us with loud purrs and tail tingles. We could frequently find her lounging on the arm of the couch, front legs splayed like a lazy panther. Plus, she was sweet. She would let us scratch her belly. And she was happy.

Sitting next to her in the shade, I reached out to pet her one last time. Her coat was still soft, but she wasn't there. Her stiff little body was empty of the big life that once filled it. I wept. I missed her. I miss her. But letting her lay there wasn't going to bring her back.

In the shop I found a long and wide box that wasn't too deep. It fit in the hole perfectly. From the closet I pulled an old towel to cover her with. Once I laid the shroud over her, I never pulled it back again. I affectionately scratched her ears, ignoring the macabre gesture that it was. She was still gone. We were already past the point of no return, but it didn't feel that way until I rested the box in the hole and covered it with a few pieces of scrap lumber. In my head I said some sort of prayer for her and cried some more. With the first shovelful of dirt, I knew sadness was going to fill the emptiness she left for a long time. Who knew something so small could be so big?

We miss her and will even after the kitten comes home. The girl still asks for her and the missus and I still hope every meow outside at night or shadow moving in the corners of our eyes is her. We miss her face and her meows and her purring and how she curled up at the end of the bed and sat in our laps for affection. We miss everything about her. We know she was just a cat and we know we've both shed more tears for her than for some people we've seen laid to rest. But we miss her. We miss her. We miss her.