Please do have some tissues ready for the following story. :'(
Nobody’s Cat
On my way home one afternoon, I saw a cat lying dead in the road. I stopped my car and picked up the limp tabby; wrapping him in a towel making sure to conceal the side of his face on which his eye had popped out of the socket. I took him to the nearest house and knocked on the door.
A man answered.
“Do you have a cat?” I asked.
He said he did.
“Is it a tabby?”
He said it was.
“Is he here?”
He looked behind him into the house for a few seconds then replied that she was in the living room.
Good, because I found one on the road.
His eyes fell to the carefully folded towel on the step behind me.
“Oh. Yeah, there are some strays running around out here. He was probably nobody’s cat.”
He paused a moment.
“I will bury him.”
And in that moment we had both realized that neither of us felt any better that he had been Nobody’s Cat.
The black and white girl was Pie. She was in our rescue’s shelter for a few months when we discovered she had FIP. I brought her home so she could know what it was like to have a family before she left us. She loved watching bird videos on my laptop.
It takes a very strong, very loving person to give anyone who is terminal that level of love and comfort.
The problem with having a big heart is that it breaks often.
Fostering is never easy, but always worth it.
Yes….a broken heart is never as bad as the guilt of knowing we could have done something but didn’t. ♥
Sadly beautiful.
My heart ?
this made me cry
We have strays here too. I’ve named one, Tom. It’s been peeping in my window almost every morning for the last week.
This is both sad and wonderful at the same time. So sweet that you took some of our furry friends in during their last hours or days. We have two rescued cats in our home and they are considered one of the family to us all. We also have cats in our neighborhood that the whole neighborhood kind of watches out for by leaving water/food and beds out when it gets cold. We also have a catch and release program to spy and neuter.
sad and touching story..
Let Tom in to your home or garage or shed or some place warmer and more safe than just “outside”. Then you can foster him and get him used to you and being petted and fed and given flea and tick medication. I have Holly in the studio/garage now. Someone “dropped” her from a car on my street. She’s a good girl. Bites and scratches when she feels too stimulated, but we are working on that. I live with 4 cats, used to be 6. I’m too old to keep Holly because she’s only a year old and I’d be 94 if she lives to be 20. Give protection to strays. Ask for help if you need it. They ask for help by hanging around or looking in your window. Love them.
My two 4 year old rescues are the current joys in my life.
Plus I have a family of 3 people living with me for the last year who have 22 Nobody’s cats that are at least 10 years old now. The 22 cats are now their cats.
Each of these animals are capable of so much love and joy in their own special way for many years to come.
Please spay and neuter your pets. And if you can no longer care for them? Please find them a new home.
Charlee: “Poor kitties.”
Chaplin: “We wish they could all be somebody’s cat.”
If fosters end up being terminal and I have to put them to sleep, they are all my cats at their moment of crossing the Rainbow Bridge. They are all buried in my flowerbed or cremated and on my book shelves.
They may have been Nobody’s Cat in life, but in death they belong to my family. And I am ok with that.
When my present furry friend goes to that catnip bush in the sky i too will be too old to take on another cat, I am 78 now and Billycat can live another ten years. Life without a cat is unthinkable so i will contact Cats Protection and offer to foster. Then i will get all the love and purrs without the worry of what happens when i die.
I know what you mean… I don’t think we could live without cats either!
That was beautiful.
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Wow… that was sad and sweet at the same time.