Hard stuff

Something horrible happened today.  I was walking home from church, thinking aloud about what David and my church will be like one day and what programs we'd offer and so on...and a car honked at me, snapping me out of my reverie.  I jumped and looked at it whizzing past and then down on the road, and there was a cat.  I'll spare you the details.  I had nothing to carry it in but my scarf.  My new, expensive, bamboo, took-me-six-months-to-knit scarf.  That I had worn today for the very first time.  I took it off and wrapped it around the cat and stood at the side of the road waving frantically at the next car, which stopped.

"Please, I found this cat on the side of the road and I need to get to the vet.  Please can you drive me?"

They looked at each other and opened the back door and I hopped in.  Turns out they were farmers, nice people, on their way home to milk the cows.  They drove me and the cat to the vet's office and I got out, apologizing profusely, and went in to the office.

"This cat was on the side of the road."
"It'll be $48 to have the vet look at him or $60 to get him euthanized."
"I don't have $60.  I don't have any money.  But I couldn't leave him.  Please."

They called the vet and while I stood alone at the counter with the cat I prayed "Please, Lord, please let the vet say he'll euthanize the cat for free.  Please, please."

"Come into the examination room with the cat, please"

I signed the paperwork saying I had brought him in.  "But I'm not the owner.  It says here on the paper that I'm the owner and I give you permission to euthanize him.  But I'm not the owner."
"I'll write that here 'found on the road' okay?"

My hand was so shaky I couldn't sign my name.  I was trying not to look at the cat.  It was really awful.

They left the cat and I alone and I prayed again: "Please, Lord, take this cat's pain away.  Please, Lord, take this cat."

The vet came in with a needle and I asked him, trying to keep my voice from shaking.  "I don't have the money to give you.  This isn't my cat.  Please will you do it anyway?"

"I thought that was the plan."  he said, looking at his nurse.  The cat is not in good shape" he said.
"You don't have to stay".
"If I'm done here, I'll go.  Go to sleep, cat."
"Do you want your scarf?"
"No.  Just throw it out."

And I walked home and collapsed against the wall inside the apartment and cried and cried.

"Don't let Samuel come near me till I bathe."  I told David.  And I had a shower and cried some more.  And I packed up my clothes in a plastic bag to wash later in case any blood got on them.

And then I tried not to think about it.  And I remembered what the farmer had said in the car "Everything dies, you just hope you die in your sleep".

If I hadn't finished that scarf...
If I hadn't worn it today...
If I had stayed even a little longer or left a little earlier from church...
If I hadn't walked home...
If the vet hadn't been open...
If anyone else had picked me up...

I hope that little cat is wherever good cats go.