I am a farm child, I have grown up with my rabbits, ducks and geese being killed and eaten, and I am no stranger to the bones and other parts of my once beloved pets littering the yard. As a farm child, you are supposed to be tough. Animals are there to be eaten, that’s why they are here in the first place. A cat dies? Don’t worry, there are enough other ones running around, half stray, half domestic cats.

Now as adult, I don’t come home to the farm so often any more. One could say city life has made me soft. One could also say that maybe the lacking exposure has made me soft.

Recently my cat died. When he was little, his mother was run over by a car and I had bottle fed him, which brought me a lot of scorn for being soft. Now he was old, and probably also very sick. I couldn‘t know for sure, since a farm cat does not get the privilege to be brought to the vet. I hadn‘t been home for a long time, and when I got there for a summer month, it was a shock to see him in the state he was in. It was torture to watch him die slowly and painfully, because that was all there was left for him to do. So I did the hardest thing: I asked my father to help him. Asking a farmer to help a sick animals means you’re asking him to kill it. I like to think that I did the right thing. That I helped him escape more pain.

I dealt with it quite well, I think. A week later my mother said a farmer from the neighbouring village had a flock of cats and was going to kill a whole lot of them, so we went there to pick a new cat, simply because there was so much spare cat food. People in the country side are very rational.

The cat we picked is a couple of months old, male, mostly white with a couple of tabby patches on his back. He was the shyest, sitting in the very back. That’s why my mother wanted him. She always takes the shy ones, because in her eyes its not fair that the shy ones always get left out. She does not like the idea that only the strong survive and that we should help one another. She was and still is different to the rest of the other farmers around, even though she too comes from a long line of farming families.

So we took him home, christened him Schnurli and watched in pure joy how the shy little kitty thawed. He is the loveliest cat ever, very playful, very curious and simply adorable. We keep confusing him with a cat from the neighbouring farm which looks just like him. The biggest difference is probably that the neighbour cat is always in the company of her black and white brother.

Today I wanted to go biking. I had my biking clothes on, my music in my ears, I was in good spirits and ready to go. I left the farm, energetically pedalling. Suddenly I stopped dead. Right in front of me lay a white cat with tabby patches on the back. There are no words to describe how fast my heart and spirits sank. I climbed off the bike and walked over to the body, very slowly, one because my knees were trembling so badly that I was afraid I could fall, and two because I dreaded what I was about to see.

What if it was still alive?

What if it was dead?

What if it was my cat?

It was the neighbouring cat, and she was dead. There was no wound on her, just her eyes wide open in an eternal stare and her mouth ajar. Others than that she looked like she was just sleeping.

A wild mix of emotions flooded my chest. Relief, that it was not my kitty, and guilt, because I cherished another cat’s death. I went back in and found my father. I told him what had happened, and asked him to help me bury her. I didn’t want to leave her lying like that, exposed to the cars driving by. I didn’t want her body to be mutilated by animals. I felt like I owed her that much, because my guilt was driving me. I felt bad for my feeling of relief, so I wanted to do her that one service of giving her a burial, even if it was just a hole in the ground. My father agreed to bury her, but if I wanted to do it, then I’d have to do it alone. One day, he said, I had to do the hard stuff myself, there was not always someone around to do the nasty work.

What else could I have done? I armed myself with a spade and went into a field to dig a hole. Then I got a shovel. I wanted to pick the dead body up, lay it in the hole and put earth on it. So the plan.

However, when I came back to the cat, I saw something black and white approaching. Her brother. My heart sank. Those two had been inseparable. It was a miracle to me how the car could have hit just her and not him too. I froze on the spot. So did he, mid-step like a setter. I didn’t know what to do. Do animals realise death? Would he realise that that was his sister laying dead? Maybe it was best to just get it over with. I lowered my shovel, ready to scoop the body up. That was when the black and white started moving. He tenderly took a few steps and pawed his sisters face, playfully, like he was mischievously trying to wake her from a nap. She didn’t react. This seemed to startle him. He bent down and sniffed her face. I could almost see realisation sinking in in his eyes. I could just see that he understood, something is wrong here. He sat down and most tenderly began licking her face.

Tears started stinging in my eyes. This absolute brotherly love in cats was more than I had ever experienced. I sat down next to them and couldn’t do anything. I just sat and watched him trying to wake her up, until a car passed us really fast. It scared him, and he ran away. So now would have been the time. I just needed to shovel her up and bury her. But I couldn’t- The dead animal had transformed into a once alive and loved being. I just couldn’t. Every time I tried I felt the soft body move. It felt like I was killing the cat instead of giving her a decent burial. I was taking black and white’s sister away.

Many cars passed as I was trying to get it done. I didn’t know any of the drivers. Had I known them, I would have stopped them and asked them to scoop the cat up. I’d bury it and everything, only I couldn’t, I simply could not put it on the shovel.

By that time I was crying so hard that I could hardly see anymore. It started raining. The heaven was dark and grey and expressed despair, as if even heaven knew what was going on. As if heaven expressed grief over having to take this one cat away.

Finally, an hour later, when I was already soaked, a random stranger passed on his bike. He saw the cat and me trembling next to it, stopped and said, “The poor little one. Do you want to bury it?”
I nodded.

“I have a hole ready, I just can’t pick her up.”

He didn’t say anything further, got off his bike, took the shovel out of my hands and scooped her up. I nodded my thanks, I couldn’t speak any more. I didn’t want to cry in front of the stranger, so I nodded. He didn't seem to mind. He handed me the shovel, got on his bike and went off.

I surprised myself. My hands were absolutely steady when I carried the cat to its grave. Only after all the earth was back in place, when everything was done, I broke down and cried.

Impressum

Texte: cover picture courtesy of Icanhascheezburger.com
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 27.08.2010

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
to the little cat thats now in heaven