I helped your kitty this weekend, and you will never know. I can't help but wonder if you will ever know what truly happened, or if you will just be left wondering..
wondering what happened, or even wondering where your sweet kitty is..
because this weekend I pulled your kitty from the middle of the road and laid it down next to the telephone pole near a local business. There are no houses near by but there are some down the road. When you realize your kitty is missing, will you walk this far to find it? Will you not even realize until after the sanitation workers stop by and pick up the body?
These are questions I can't continue to ask myself, because they break my heart.
I want to yell and scream at you, but I can't. I too lost a kitty to the great outdoors. Tig was abandoned outside as a kitten and then found and brought to a shelter. I found him there and brought him home and he was frantic to get out. It was November at the time, and we lived with in a professional pitcher's throw of a major interstate. I so wanted to keep him in, but he was miserable and so we were miserable, so we let him out - of course he was miserable and wanted to get back in immediately. Flashbacks of not having a home haunted him, but flash backs of defending his territory also haunted him and I was too inexperienced at the time to help him understand that being an indoor only kitty was a good thing. So we helped him become an indoor/outdoor kitty by standing in the cold with him, and letting him in each of the 100 times he asked those first few days. He was fine next to the highway. Then we moved to a rough part of another town. No trees, no grass, but he still refused to stay in. We moved in with the in-laws and he was out in the middle of the woods and in heaven with all the moles and mice to catch and bring home. We moved again to another new town, with its own challenges. This one had trees and birds, but it also had a heavily traveled road and I worried, but he was fine. We finally bought out own home and moved to the country. All my fears were eased. I figured he would be safe out there. Well one day he did not come home. I did not worry about him until two days later because it was common for him to spend the night hunting. 15 or so years later I still have a small bit of hope that he found a new home to live in.. but now when he would be 22, I have come to accept that he is dead.
Will you wonder?
or will you know.
It looked like your kitty did not suffer. It looked fairly peaceful laying there on the road. When I realized what it was I had to turn around and go to help. Animals on the road are often fair game to people who think it is fun to run them over and make them as flat as possible. As I was pulling over an 18-wheeler was coming up on the body. I flashed my lights and sent up a silent prayer and then... it was gone and your kitty was still intact.
Your kitty was also still warm. It had been a while, but not all that long. It could have easily still been alive save for the tongue hanging out of its mouth. Still to be sure I called softly to it, no response. I approached carefully, again to be sure, but still nothing. In the very dim light the kitty held a strong resemblance to my Muffin. White with a gray cap and cape and on the larger side of healthy. Yet some how I did not cry. I did what I had to do; I had no other choice. The thought of your kitty there was something I could not bare. It would have haunted my dreams, and I would have obsessed all night if not for days.
Just so you know, you are not alone. This was the fifth kitty I have carried to the side of the road. Many did not look as good as yours did. Then there was the kitty I found in a ditch when I was still a school child delivering the afternoon papers.. She was alive, but she did not survive. And when I let myself, I can only begin to image what happened to my Tig..
All I can allow myself to say is:
I'm so very very sorry for your loss. you have my deepest condolences..
and your kitty has my tears.