More About Kitty

Here's something I may do a YouTube video about or talk about on my uStream channel next time I broadcast.

A while ago, I wrote about a little shelter cat named Bravo who had died after surgery to fix his bad hind legs. Not long after, I wrote about the cat my family had when I was a kid and how I felt responsible when she died the summer I graduated from high school. When my mom read that post, she sent me an email saying I shouldn't because she'd forgotten to let the cat in, too.

I should probably explain how Kitty died to begin getting into why I feel responsible for it. See, we would let her out on the front porch every now and then so she could get a little fresh air. Our front porch where we were living at the time was high-walled, but not fully enclosed or anything. There were no screens or gates or anything covering the openings and steps. What we did instead was we'd put her on an eight- or ten-foot length of light nylon rope so she could run around a bit and not get too far away.

Now, right there, there are clues as to just what went wrong. I'm pretty sure I know what you're thinking right now, and we're getting to that. What makes it worse is that yes, we were even in the habit of letting Kitty go out relatively unattended like that.

Anyway, the night Kitty died, somebody, I don't remember who, and I'm not placing any blame for this part, put Kitty on her string and let her out. Later on, my brother and my folks went to bed, and I stayed up for another couple hours messing around on AOL. When I finally got bored of it, I didn't think anything of going right to bed.

I remember the dream I had just before I woke up the next morning. I was at this lake my family spent a lot of time at when I was a kid, and everywhere I looked, there was fire. Everything was burning, the trees, the grass, the resort and the surrounding private cabins, even the lake itself was on fire. And then I awoke to my mother screaming. The first thought through my head was “Oh shit, I forgot to let the cat in.”

When my mom stepped out to get the paper that morning, she found that Kitty had gotten her string wrapped around one of the legs of the glider we had on the porch and then somehow managed to misjudge the ledge she liked to sit on and had hanged to death in the night because the rope was attached to her collar. I feel responsible for that because I was the last one to go to bed that night, and I think I may even have said I'd let her in, and I didn't do it.

Now, I did learn a thing or two for next time I have a cat, should I ever be in a position to have one again, so this mistake was not completely wasted. Should I ever have a cat again, I won't be letting it out unattended, and if there's a tether or rope involved somehow, it will be a leash attached to a chest harness used for walking a cat, with me on the other end.

So, to all involved, and especially Kitty, I'd like to say I'm sorry. I feel bad about the way things ended, and I'm sorry I had to learn the hard way in this case, but I'd like to think I know better now. I think my lesson has been learned.