Wednesday, July 06, 2011

overwhelming sadness

Sometimes, things happen that make you feel so overwhelmed with sadness. For me, this is one of those times. 
We look after our neighbours cats when he goes on holiday. He looks after ours when we go away. It's a nice arrangement which means neither of us have to put our cats in a cattery - which I feel would just be too much for my cats - given their previous traumas (between the two they've had a broken leg, pelvis and kindney failure).
On Saturday just gone, whilst we were looking after our neighbours cats, one of them, Tim, the most beautiful tabby, got run over on the road outside our house and sadly he didn't survive the accident.
Tim crossed the road on a daily basis. My heart was always in my mouth when he did, but he seemed to watch the traffic and knew when to go. This day, he was just unlucky.

I'm feeling all kinds on things:
Thankful that we found him almost immediately after it had happened and we don't think he suffered too much.
Angry that someone can be so despicable to hit a cat with their car and then drive away.
Sad for my neighbour - who is in his eighties and lives by himself (his wife died of cancer some years ago, and he tells us all the time how much he misses her). His cats are his family. He didn't get to say goodbye.
Grief for the loss of beautiful Tim. I feel I have a huge empathy with cats - which I'm sure you cannot understand if you're not a cat owner.  I love my cats so much - they make me smile and give me a little lift every single day. I also think they are great stress relievers, are so affectionate and love you unconditionally.

After speaking to our nighbours son, who lives quite far away, he decided the best thing we could do was to bury Tim in our neighbours garden, which we did. We treated him like he was our own cat.
We have both shed many many tears this last few days, and now I just have a feeling of overwhelming sadness inside me.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

so sad, you did exactly the right thing ... love x

Nicky Stevenson said...

I'm sorry to read about this, the same thing happened to me and my boyfriend years ago when we looked after a cat belonging to friends of my boyfriend's parents. We did the same as you about burial but felt bad about it happening.

We had something else though, whilst the owners were away we had to call in the authorities to fumigate their house as it was infested with cat fleas and I kept getting bitten! They were given the bill for that too.

Not an experience I would wish on anybody (hugs) x

Emily said...

RIP Tim x

RahRah Repeats said...

Oh that's so very sad. My parents have lost two cats to the road and it doesn't get any easier. The first time it happened they were away too and were lucky that whoever hit them took them to a local vets. The second time - the council just cleared her away and didn't even scan her for a chip to let them know - they only found out after making their own enquiries. Oh it's so awful but take comfort that you gave Tim a decent send off.

I'm so thankful my cat isn't very outdoorsy. When she's out for more than 20 minutes I start to get worried.

Lots of love x

Angela Nickeas said...

So sad. I too am a cat owner and lover and i don't think some people understand what they bring to people's lives. x

Anonymous said...

i didn't understand what all the fuss about pets passing away was about, until i was adopted by a cat myself. i'm so sad for you and your neighbour. take things easy for a bit. it's ok to be sad.

without trivialising the topic, i also wanted to say hurrah for your piece in mollie makes!

Mrs Moog said...

Oh what a terrible thing to happen but sadly it happens all too easily. We saw a cat get run over right in front of us and the car drove away. I actually don't think they had even seen the cat or realised what happened as it was all so quick.
You did absolutely the best thing and I'm sure that will be a huge comfort to your neighbour.

(((hugs)))
xxx

Ali said...

So sad. But I'm sure your neighbour will be comforted by the fact you did the right thing and have put him to rest someplace peaceful. And that it was quick and he did not suffer.