Sadness

We lost one of our cats the other day.  Cotten (yes, it’s spelled how we called out to her: Cot-tennnnn) was hit by a passing vehicle.  We don’t know who hit her or exactly what time, but we found her body on the side of the road directly across from our house.  We had thought, living in the boonies like we do now, that our cats would be safe outside.  Sadly, we were horribly wrong. 

Norm and I had two cats: Cotten and Skyler.  Skyler is nominally my cat; Cotten was his.  In actuality, they were both our cats and we both will miss Cotten a lot.  She was a small white persian/angora mix with a meow so soft you would only hear it if you were looking at her. She was the runt of her litter and was small enough that she slept between our pillows at night. 

The odd thing is that since the move we’d never seen her go more than ten feet from the house.  She followed us around the yard and would always come right to us if we called her.  She didn’t seem interested in going outdoors at all, and only would go when we or Skyler were out there with her.  So we were both horrified and confused when we found her so far from the house. 

We buried her far back beyond the house, and deep, and Norm painted a beautiful slate marker to place over her grave.  She was a very loving kitty and will be sorely missed.  Norm is especially heartbroken and feels a tremendous amount of guilt for kicking her off the bed that morning while he was trying to sleep.  And he gets tears in his eyes every time he looks at Skyler now.

Needless to say, Skyler is now and forevermore an indoor cat.  And if the heartless bastard who hit her and didn’t have the decency to stop and let anyone know about it should read this entry, know this: Karma is a bitch, and I have no doubt you will find that out. 

I know someone out there will think that we’re far too attached to our animals, and to them I say: bite me.  Our pets are our children, doted on and given every bit of care and loving that we can muster.  If our expression of loss seems over the top to you, then I don’t think I’d care to know you anyway. 

RIP Cotten.  We’ll miss you sweetie.