A Preventable Death

Not such a cheery title, eh? Well, the story I'm about to tell isn't very cheery. If you are a person with a kitty or kitties and you're not so good with the sad stories, you might want to close this window right now and go read something else.

Tonight after the weekly meeting of the Silicon Valley Stitchers I decided to go in search of food. McDonald's to be precise. I decided to get there via Dry Creek Road. Dry Creek Road is a residential street lined with very expensive homes. But the street is very poorly lit and is very twisty. My ex-husband would use it to test drive the handling abilities of any new vehicle he bought. The speed limit on the street is 25 miles per hour and there are some turns where even that seems excessive.

Driving along the first thing I noticed was a little black cat beside the road. Of course I immediately slowed down in case he should try and run across. But as I got closer I realized there was something else in the road. His friend. I guess he was wondering why his friend wasn't getting out of the road like he had.

I slammed on the brakes and hit the emergency flashers. As I was getting out of my car, an SUV with 2 young men pulled up and stopped. They had hit the cat with their truck. As I got closer to kitty I could see blood all over the road but kitty seemed to still be alive. I ran back to my car and pulled a blanket out of the trunk so that I could take kitty to the Emergency Vet down the street.

The passenger from the SUV was beside himself. He was almost in tears and just kept pacing back and forth, repeating over and over again, "Oh my God, I can't believe this happened." The driver kept apologizing to me and saying he never even saw the cat. By the time I got the blanket and went back to kitty it was obvious a trip to the vet wasn't going to be in the plan. I stayed with him, stroking his fur until he crossed over.

Someone who lived on the street had come down to see what the commotion was. When he saw what had transpired he went back up to his home to get something to move the kitty off the road with. Instead, I picked up kitty and wrapped him in my blanket. His little body was still warm as I cradled him in my arms and walked up the driveway. When I got to the man's front door I pulled back the top of the blanket and removed kitty's collar in case we could contact his owner. Unfortunately it was just a simple flea collar with no tags.

I asked the man to please call Animal Control to come and get kitty and he promised he would. The two young men were still hanging around and I tried to reassure them that this was in no way their fault.

If you have kitties and you let them go outside, I hope this story has somehow struck a chord with you. Yes, I know when you try to keep kitty inside he or she makes your life miserable by trying to get out. Yes, I know litter boxes are rather disgusting and it's so much easier when kitty does his business outside. And sure, in a perfect world kitty would be able to go outside and watch the birds and hunt mice and climb trees.

But it's not a perfect world. It's a world filled with big cars and dark, windy roads. And four people who had to deal with a very tragic situation tonight. And last but not least, one kitty who won't be going home.