Yes, Bob. We have our little collection of ashes in wooden boxes arrayed on the stereo in the Sun Room.
The only cat we ever buried was the one who started coming around one year right around Thanksgiving.
We weren't able to get her to come in the house or make friends with us at all.
From the condition of her dead body, Bryan deduced that she had been hit by a car, and she just made it
back to her "safe place" that we had prepared for her, in time to die. Something was eating her, quite
literally, and we took her remains, wrapped her in a burial cloth, and gave her a nice deep hole in which
to sleep. She has a little headstone as well. She never got a proper name.
"She never got a proper name." It's amazing how well this fits what you were describing there. Among other things, I think you can conclude that I have "been there, done that".
Down on the Road
My wife’s cat got killed down on the road the other day,
Expending all of its lives in a futile, final moment.
Probably, it’s better that it happened quickly,
We wouldn’t want the beast to live in torment.
We never got around to giving it a name,
Translating just as friendly sounds,
And we were just some folks it saw,
In making its appointed rounds.
The necessary burial detail fell to me,
I’ve had too much of practice in the task.
I’d just as soon it fall to someone else,
To let me shrug and wonder if she’d ask.
"So, have you seen the cat of late?
The poor thing must be ready to come round …"
"No, Dear. I haven’t seen it,
It’s probably in another part of town."
The comfort of not knowing would be welcome.
Instead I have the dread of knowing truth;
That cats will go a-hurrying across a road,
As if the hounds of Hell pursueth.
Cats and highway vehicles don’t mix too well,
The feline wiring won’t admit,
That there are times and circumstances,
When cat-quick reflexes don’t fit.
And thus the grisly task inherits me.
Holding back my tears with stoic face,
I perform a silent duty to a former friend,
Caught between a wheel and a hard place.
Then walking back to put away the shovel,
I have a little time to give it thought.
Please let someone do the same for me,
When I have lost the final battle that I fought.
Just put me down where frost won’t make me shiver,
And cover with a blanket made of grass,
Amidst the roots which always smell so pleasant,
Of soda-scented sweetened sassafras.
NicknamedBob . . . March 19, 2008
.
Although this was written a few years ago, that doesn't indicate how long it festered and gestated in my mind before I was able to give voice to it.
It's sad, and poignant, and with a somber kind of sweet resignation.