Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

An ode on a dead cat.

Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008
11:09 p.m.
Driving to the university early this afternoon to teach a 1:30 lesson, I passed a mass of inert fur that had not been there earlier when I had walked to and from Spanish class. It was dark gray and it looked like a dead kitten, certainly too small to be a full-grown cat, and while I didn’t have time to spend a great deal of thought on it, I was reminded of Suzie, the neighbour’s cat who thinks we are his. Where this lump of fur was dark gray and Suzie is mostly white, it still represented the remains of someone’s pet, a household friend, a mouser and a foot warmer.

Even though Suzie is not my cat, and that isn’t even his correct name, I still have a certain amount of affection for him because of the amount of time he invests in trying to get into my house, hanging around the back deck, climbing on the screen door and up the laundry post to get onto the two low roofs. When I am hanging laundry, Suzie is there, rubbing up against my ankles. When I am weeding in the garden, he butts his head under my hand looking for a scratch. He will see us arrive home by car and scamper from across the street to greet us.

Yet, he is not our cat. We feel no responsibility to provide for him, neither food nor shelter, although we did put a cardboard box out that he likes to use as a bed when he snoozes on the patio table. But I tried to imagine, however briefly, the grief I would feel if that were in fact Suzie’s crushed and mangled body on M0ulton Hill, and for that moment I was unspeakably sad. I thought about having to inform the kids and Suzie’s owners, and was overwhelmed with sorrow.

But it was only momentary because of course it wasn’t Suzie; it was a strange cat with no ties to me, and I was past it and around the corner very quickly with people to meet and duties to discharge. I didn’t think of it again until I was returning home the same way, tired and hungry, and noticed that the gray bundle of fur was even more compacted from passing motorists than before. But I forgot about it completely until Janice gave us this exercise, to write about something I did or saw today for 20 minutes using my own voice.

This could be why I don’t have pets. It’s hard enough raising children for 22 years and then having them leave to seek their fortunes in the big bad world. At least I know they will come to visit and, if things work out as they should, I will grow old and die and they will mourn me, but continue their own journeys. But pets are short lived and automobiles are difficult to argue with. Someone’s cat didn’t come home today. I’m glad it wasn’t mine.

|

<~~~ * ~~~>