Ethical dilemmas continued

FAIR WARNING, THIS IS NOT A STORY FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. It's a little gory and very sad, you may want to skip this post. And also not read it either while eating or shortly after eating
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Ok, I warned you.

On Friday morning, Clint left for Gun Barrel, and I was preparing to take my girl scouts to Lake Limestone. I had a bunch of errands to do, and one included taking Ivan to the vet for what seems like will be his annual cortisone shot for his mosquito allergy. Apparently we can’t do anything to prevent this, without allergy testing and weekly allergy treatments, so, he had an appointment on Wednesday, Clint left work early to take him and then couldn’t find him. We rescheduled for Friday morning, so I was looking for him. The cat knows when he has an appointment and knows exactly where to hide, because I couldn’t find him either and ended up calling and telling them that I would need to call back if he resurfaced.

In my hunt for him however, I was in the backyard, since we have a section of fence that’s like at a 45° angle and has been for a few weeks, I thought that as long as I was out there, I’d go see what we’d need to do to fix it. Ever made a decision in which you truly wish you could turn back time? I come up to the fence and notice a particularly foul odor. And I’m looking and I see what I think is possible fangs from a snake and maybe and eye and some skin that looks scaly. And I looked on the bottom side of the fence.
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It’s not a snake. It’s not fangs. It’s a claw. Now, I can’t tell if it’s a raccoon, or a cat or a possum. But I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. I ran back into the house, horrified. Remembering the other night when I heard a cat crying and I couldn’t find it. Remembering the nights that Scarlett was back in that corner of the yard and I could not for the life of me get her to come in.

I called Clint, one of his household duties is the removal of dead animals. He used to share this duty with Shane. I have issued orders of removal for a mouse, a squirrel and now, this – what I hoped was a raccoon. I told him of my grisly discovery, and went on to the Girl Scout trip. I can honestly say that animal was in the back of my head all weekend. (I did find Ivan and took him to the vet and all is well with Alexander, and also the gray cat that does not belong to us, but apparently we feed.) So when Clint finally got home, and went to inspect the dead animal, he said he needed my help in its removal due to the angle of the fence. I asked if he could tell me it was a raccoon. And he was silent. And I knew. And he said slowly, “I … can … tell … you … it’s … a … cat.” And I said “NO!!! Tell me it’s a raccoon.”

And all I could think about was the week I was missing Alexander. How during that week all I wanted to know was where he was. If he was dead, I wanted a body, I needed closure. Here’s the thing, this animal, which I would still like to believe may not have been a cat, had already lost a significant amount of hair, there’s no recognizing a cat by its skeleton and dried up skin. And there had been lost cat posters around the neighborhood a few weeks ago, but not within the last week or so. That cat has been hanging on our fence for at least 2 weeks. We put him in a black trash bag; he’ll go out with the rest of the week’s trash on Wednesday. How do I get over this? How do I live with myself for not being able to tell someone what happened to their cat? What if I call the lost cat poster people and it turns out not to be their cat? Or worse yet, what if it is? And who’s to say which of the lost cats is the one we have? The cat, like ours and so many others in the neighborhood had no collar. I’m heart broken for this cat, and his/her owners. And I’m mad at myself for not looking harder for that crying cat a few weeks ago, when I may have been able to save him.

I know now, that when I hear a cat crying, I will walk the fence of our yard. But that doesn’t save this cat. This cat that I'm still hoping is actually a very skinny raccoon.