Difficult day

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My husband has a soft heart. He has always had time to help anyone who needed it.
He’s not afraid to show affection to me or to our cats. He’s not afraid to show emotion.

Yesterday was very difficult for him, and for me.
About 11:00AM he started out to run some errands. Shortly after I kissed him good bye, maybe five minutes, he burst back in the door crying.

He had pulled out of the driveway, going north. At the intersection, one house north of us he watched a woman hit a cat. He tried to flag her down, but she drove off. The kitty ran a few yards before it died.

He brought the kitty home, and through his tears, asked me what we should do.
I made a box and sealed her up in it. Then I made some signs to put up around the neighborhood. I knocked on the doors of a few neighbors to see if anyone recognized her from a discription. No luck.
We decided that if we hadn’t gotten any calls by 7:00PPM, we’d bury her in the back flowerbed. We didn’t get any calls so we gently buried her.

At 10:00PM the phone rang. Hubby asked who would be calling so late? But, before he finished the thought, his face fell, with just an oh.
I answered, and indeed, it was a man responding to the flyer we posted. As gently as I could, I told him what had happened. He sounded near tears too.
I told him what we had done, and said if he wanted we could recover her for him. He decided that yes, he needed to see her.

We went out and retreived her.
They only live two blocks away, so they were here in just a couple minutes.
They wanted to be sure. When they opened the little box they both cried. I was so sad for them. They loved her just as we love our kitties. Her name was Twig, because she was so little.

Hubby stood a little away, he couldn’t bear their pain on top of his own.
They thanked me for putting up the signs. I could tell the woman wanted to ask Hubby how it happened, but at the same time, didn’t want to hear it. Since he hung back, she didn’t ask.
I gave the woman a hug with one more “I’m so sorry” and they were gone.
We were quiet with each other for a few minutes, then Hubby went to bed.

He seems ok this morning. He leaves for work at 5:00AM. I don’t always get up with him, but this morning I did to see if he would be ok.

Yesterday was a very difficult day. :frowning:

2

Oh, boo hoo! Poor kitty! Poor husband! That’s a really sad thing to have to go through. He was so nice to bring the poor kitty’s body home; very few people would have done that.

Today’s a new day! Hope things brighten up.

3

Poor little Twig.
You and your husband are good people. I hope today is better for you both.

4

[sniff] what a difficult day.

but at least the kitty’s people know what happened, so they can start to deal with it. that’s got to be better than waiting day after day for a kitty that never shows up.

hugs to you and your husband.

5

picunurse, you and your husband are good-hearted people. Thank you for taking care of Twig, and letting her family know what happened to her. I worry about my neighbor’s kitties, because they like to hang out in the road, but they’re mostly street-smart. I’d hate to have to deal with something like that.

6

Gah! The woman was wrong for driving off and your husband is a super-nice guy, but why oh why was the kitty wandering around? Inside cats! And this is why!

I don’t mean to come in here and sound all insensitive. On the contrary, I am constantly worried about doing this…hitting someone’s beloved cat. If only they wouldn’t let them roam randomly around the neighborhood!

7

You did a nice thing anyway. One of my cat’s been missing for 9 days now, and no word from her yet. It’s so much nicer if you get closure on what’s happened, even if its a bad thing. It happened 4-6 after I moved, so I was expecting something like this could happen, but it still sucks.

With cats you never know though. Especially since now they live on the third floor of a building where they could roam the rooftops, she could be anywhere. She probably slipped or went into the wrong house, or jumped and couldn’t get back. There’s small hope in that she didn’t turn up in the cat-morgue yet (usually people have the ‘pet ambulance’ collect dead animals) so there’s a fair chance she’s at least alive.

I’ll put up a poster this weekend with a picture here and there, see if that helps, and maybe call a vet.

I feel stupid now that I haven’t had her chipped. Wasn’t necessary before I moved, but obviously so now.

8

The risk they run of being run over is, in my view, amply compensated by the joy they experience in being able to go outside. There’s a lot of upsides and downsides to both, but in such cases, I just open the door and see what the cat prefers to do.

9

Thank you all for the support.

I know that kitties are safer when kept indoors, but so are children, and people in general. We have to weigh the benefits against the risks in every part of life.
Our kitties go out late in the evening, when there isn’t traffic. Hubby feels strongly that they need the freedom now and then.
Twig’s family was truly surprised to hear she had crossed the street. They said she usually hangs out inside the fence. She usually didn’t stay out for more than a few minutes, they said. They’d been looking all day for her.
Hubby suspects the tree trimmers spooked her, and she got disoriented.
I don’t even know the people’s names, but I hope they’re doing ok today.

10

One of my co-workers had a beloved kitten and some neighborhood kids hung it (hanged?) just for kicks. She came to work anyway and cried a lot. I don’t even think I could make it to work if something like that happened.

I have a real love of animals, cats and kittens in particular. Sounds like you and mr. picunurse are wonderful people, to care so much about that poor cat and its owner.

11

hugs picunurse for a very long time Here’s hoping today’s a much better day–good karma is coming your way any time now.

12

beckwall, how awful! I hope CPS or its equivalent was notified. Children who hurt pets need help. They may be abused themselves. Whatever the reason, they are acting out and need to be redirected.
Your co-worker is stronger than I could ever be, by coming to work. I know bosses sometimes dismiss the death of a pet as trivial, but anyone who has experienced it knows better.

I hope what we did would be what any pet lover would do. Not knowing is so much harder. I lost a kitty who escaped from a friend’s house while we were traveling. I still startle a little when i see a cat that looks like him in that neighborhood. He was lost 20 years ago. :confused:
Thanks again.

13

Picunirse, I know how your husband feels. I once saw a squirrel get run over and drag himself to the side of the road. I pulled over, but by the time I got there, he was dead. I was in tears by the time I got home. I can’t even imagine how I would have felt if he had had a family to come and collect him.

14

Aww, I cried just reading that story. This is why my kitties are all indoor cats - we live between the two main streets in town and there is always a lot of traffic. Riverbed is the only one who had ever been outdoors, for the first few weeks of her life, and she seems to have pretty much gotten over her urges to go out. Luckily we do have a big three-season porch and they get plenty of fresh air and see birds and squirrels and whatever else the neighborhood has to offer, so I really don’t think they’re missing anything. When I lived with my then-fiance for a year, Glenn was the only one who came with us while the other two remained with my parents, and whenever we went out on the deck, he hid under the couch as if afraid he might somehow end up outside. (When he was a little kitty, he fell through a loose screen and cried till someone went out and got him.) They’re all getting up there in years now - as few of my neighbors’ outdoor kitties have done - and I know I’m going to lose them one of these days, and I know I’m going to be in pretty bad shape when it happens.

picunurse, I think you and your husband did exactly the right thing, not only in taking care of the poor little kitty, but in finding her family and letting them mourn for her. On the other hand, I hope the woman who hit her and drove off gets hit by lightning. I once thought I might have hit a dog that ran out in front of me from between two parked cars, and I immediately stopped and looked for it until a guy told me that it ran away and seemed to be fine, he didn’t think I’d even hit it, the jolt I felt was just from stopping the car so fast. Whether cats should be kept indoors or not is beside the point, I just don’t get that level of not caring.

15

PicuHubby’s good people. So are you.

That brought tears to my eyes, and I’m going to give my two some extra cuddles tonight (they’ve been getting them all week anyway, every time I see another story about lost Katrina pets).

E.

16

I’m sorry to hear about your bad day. You and your husband were very kind and thoughtful to post the flyer about Twig. Maybe this story will cheer you up.

In the summertime, when we get a lot of rain, turtles will try to cross the street. One day, I told a coworker how I took a turtle to the otherside of the street and how people were laughing at me when they drove by. She told me that she was driving home from work when she saw a cat that in the middle of the road. She pulled off the street and attempted to rescue the kitty. Turns out, the kitty was a skunk! :eek: Luckily, my friend got in the car before the skunk sprayed her. :wink:

17

Thanks for the laugh. I wouldn’t laugh at you for rescuing a turtle. :slight_smile:

18

About ten years ago I had a silmilar experience. We had a roaming pair of cats that would visit various apartments. I’d leave the door open, they’d come in and visit, and then they’d go. This went on for months.

One night I pull in and my neighbor is crying her eyes out in her parked car. This is winter, mind you, so I check on her. She’s cradling her dead, frozen cat, which she recovered from a road. This is one my “visiting cats,” the brave one. His partner cat was the shy one. She’s fine.

So now I’m miserable. I’ve bonded with this now dead cat.

So she’s pretty much stuck in freaked out mode. I helped her bury the cat. We picked a site nearby, I suggest that she pick out a toy for her cat’s grave, I dig the actuall grave and we do a little devotional to Bast.

It was a sad, fine moment for us.

19

Hugs and thank you for caring for the little fuzzer and her people.

20

Wow. It’s good to know there are such kind, kitty-loving people in this hard, kitty-hurtin’ world. I know it made a huge difference to those people to know what happened to Twig and that she was cared for so respectfully afterward. Thank you.