I Can't Find My Way Home

Copied from my Facebook, July 3, 2011 at 6:47 PM
I bought this house three years ago, and since then I've noticed these two cats that roam the neighborhood...I often see one or both of them when I leave the house and also when I come back...they like my yard...probably because I never try to chase them out...I never cut the grass, haha...it's nice and wooded...they're not going to get chased by a kid or barked at by a dog in my yard...



they even like to chill on my front deck and on my back deck...sometimes I open my back door to get some air circulation and I startle them and they run off...they always run when they see me or my car...I didn't know if they are stray cats or if they belong to someone...I always assumed they belonged to someone, otherwise how would they have survived the annual snow storms we get here??...



there's a male and female, I think...I think I know the difference between a male and a female, the females have a more slender appearance...in the face and the body...the males have more of a fat face...I don't know if it's because they actually ARE fatter, or if they carry more muscle, or if their fur is thicker and bigger...or some combination of that...they both have gray fur and the male has some white on his cheeks, and big whiskers...



so last night, I got home from the gym...started cleaning my house...and I hear a very LOUD meowing sound coming from outside...I keep my windows open during the summer...so I walked out on my front deck towards the second staircase and I see the female cat with a kitten...the adult cat didn't run, but just sort of looked at me...and backed off...and appeared to get ready to run...but didn't...finally I got closer and closer and the adult cat ducked under the deck...I didn't get a good look at the kitten's face, he was facing away from me...but I could see he had black and white fur...I figured the kitten was hungry...and maybe the adult cat, too...



I went inside and opened up a can of salmon and put half the can into a bowl...then took it outside...and put it next to the kitten...then I figured maybe the kitten is too young to eat a chunky, solid food like salmon so I went and got a saucer and filled it up with milk...when I got outside the kitten was gone and so I just left the milk next to the salmon...



I was wondering if they would eat it??...or if they had just moved on to someplace and would never realize it was there...Rhace thought this silly, he told me, "cats will always find food"...but I've fed cats before and they've turned down food before...back in the Navy...spring of '91...I saw a cat on the naval base where I was stationed...so I went back inside the barracks and brought out some sliced turkey luncheon meat...good stuff, too...and the cat devoured it...but then I brought back some more and the cat wouldn't eat it...and also back in '98...my friend's mother's cat would take two bites of the canned tuna I would feed it and then not eat the rest...I guess that's the difference between house cats and stray cats?...house cats can be finicky whereas stray cats will eat anything because they know what it's like to be hungry??...



I was guessing that the next day, the food would still be there...I was worried that some other animal would get to the food...or that the bugs would attack it...



so the next day, I wake up...make breakfast...get ready to go to the gym...throw my windows open...and again, I hear this LOUD meowing sound coming from outside...which reminded me...did the cats eat the food??...I was going to find out...and so I went to the two bowls I had left on the deck, and YEP... Rhace was right...the bowls were clean...and so from all the meowing I guessed that my buddies wanted more food...I remember thinking, "is this going to happen all the time??...I better buy extra milk at the store next time and get some cat food"...



I wasn't worried about the adult cat...the thing had survived for a long time before I moved here...but I wanted the kitten to be able to eat...I was guessing that the adult cat could just kill something and eat it??...but that a baby kitten couldn't eat a dead rodent or a dead bird...so no more salmon but I took the saucer and filled it with milk and put it on the deck...



went back inside...STILL..."meow! meow!"...this time, the sound was coming from my garage...I looked all over the garage but didn't see either of them...I grabbed the saucer of milk off the deck and put it in the corner of the garage and went back inside...



I still heard the meowing so this time I went back into the garage, determined to locate these cats...finally, I looked under my car...the adult cat was nowhere to be seen but the kitten was under my car...so I grabbed the saucer and put it next to the car and went back inside...



still more meowing so I was like "what the hell is going on?"...I grabbed a broom and just shoved the kitten out from under the car and next to the milk...and then he stopped meowing...it was at that point that I realized something was seriously wrong with the little guy...then I started getting upset...



I looked at him and he was all fur and bones...he looked like one of those new dog toys...the ones they are making these days with no stuffing...and he was barely bigger than a large rat...it was the first really good look I had of the little guy...I looked into his eyes, they were very light gray...he started making this little motion like cats and dogs often do...sort of stretching motion when they are lying down and trying to relax...then he just stopped...I got this horrible, sinking feeling...this poor baby kitten was going to die in my garage...



I went back inside, continued eating and doing some things...I didn't hear any meowing...then it was time to head out to the gym so I got all my stuff, put it in the car...the kitten was still there, lifeless...right near the driver's side door...I went and  got a snow shovel and tapped him lightly...didn't move a muscle...I took the saucer of milk and went back in the house and dumped it in the sink...then I got the snow shovel and scooped up my buddy...I don't know if he started moving then but I don't think so...he was only sort of jiggling because he was in the shovel and I was walking up the hill...I thought I heard him wheeze or cough but I can't be sure...so I walked to the top of the hill and just flung him into the woods...if he was still alive, I hope he hit something hard and it killed him...so he would be out of his misery...but I'm pretty sure he was dead or near dead...



I felt myself starting to cry...it was so pathetic...I was crushed.  Heartbroken.  Poor guy only had a short time on this earth and he spent almost all of it suffering...why??...what did he ever do to anybody??...nothing...NOTHING...I remember driving off to the gym and feeling guilty...like I should have done more...like taken him to some animal hospital...but I don't think anyone could have done anything...the cat was seriously messed up...it wasn't from malnutrition, I'm sure...I think the cat had blood disease...probably from being bitten by bugs...like this one stray that my cousin used to feed back in 2003...



I tried to regain my composure...on the drive to the coffee shop and then the gym...but the kitten's cries haunted me...they kept echoing in my head...before, I never really distinguished between the different types of meows that cats make...but now I think I can...this kitten wasn't meowing happily...or even in a way of saying, "I'm hungry"...this kitten was in agony...it was a loud, anguished meowing...it still echoes in my head as I type this...



so I got to the gym and tried to put it out of my head...you can't let outside things distract you when you're working out, but sometimes you can't help it...Sunday is leg day and I did fine with my leg extensions...then on to front squats and the first few sets went well...but then by the fourth set I was so bummed I got barely half the reps I usually do...I just had the kitten's anguished meows in my head and the picture of him suffering and dying in my garage...



on Sundays, the gym sound system plays "classic hard rock"...metal and hair music from the '80s and early '90s...lots of Ozzy Osbourne, Def Lepperd, Poison, Motley Crue, Queensryche, Europe, sometimes some '70s like KISS or old Van Halen...most of it is hard-driving metal or hard rock but there is the occasional power ballad..."Every Rose Has It's Thorn"..."Is This Love?", by Whitesnake...also "I Remember You" by Skid Row which is sort of hard-rocking but also sappy...



so I was getting ready to do my fourth set of front squats and this song comes on...I don't know who sings it but it is by a hard rock band and it is a cover of the old Steve Winwood song, "Can't Find My Way Home"...I'm not sure if he did it with Traffic or with Blind Faith...and then it came to the line, "I'm wasted and I can't find my way home"...and then the notion appeared in my head...this poor kitten never had a home because he spent most of his short life sick and in pain and he died right there in my garage...I think that song will always sadden me...at least for a very long time...



at that point I was ready to lose it so as quickly as I could I went to the locker room and grabbed my stuff and headed for the door...I felt the tears starting to roll down even before I made it to the door...and just hustled out to my car...



I just sat there sobbing for about five straight minutes in the boiling heat, inside a car in the 90 degree weather...it was about five minutes before I had the sense to turn the car on and start the air conditioner...and I was just heartbroken and sobbing the entire ride home...



I remember feeling horrible as I turned on to my street...feeling like I was returning to the scene of a horrible tragedy...I almost wish there was someone I could apologize to for not doing enough...but it's not like a person dying...there was no one who cared about this kitten...well, no people who did...except me...it was just so pathetic...even his mother abandoned him there...at the end of his life it was just me and him...and I was helpless to do anything else but watch him die...



I got home and just sat there wiping my eyes for about ten minutes...just thinking, and planning to call some friends to see what they are up to this weekend...I have several projects going on around my house...part of my deck is not on stilts...it is right on the ground...and then dirt keeps coming up...and then on the other side of the deck where it meets the driveway, that part of the asphalt is falling apart...so every now and then I have to dig up some of the dirt from the one part of the deck and fill in where the asphalt is falling apart...



today when I took the spade and started digging, I had the feeling of digging a grave...I never had that feeling before...and I also had to use that same snow shovel to move some leaves off my driveway and into the woods...



after an hour or so of yard work I went into the house to make those calls and went into the kitchen...and there in the sink was that saucer that my buddy had his last meal from...and it reminded me of him all over again...



I turned on the radio and Chris Rea was singing "newborn eyes always cry in pain with their first look at the morning sun/save your crying for the day"...a line from his one big hit in 1978...



rest in peace, buddy...you're out of your pain, dear friend...



I kind of/sort of feel better when I want to...but whenever I think of the guy I start to well up at times...I never really was able to distinguish between cat meows...they pretty much all sounded the same to me...and there was something disturbing about the way this kitten was meowing...it was a painful cry...it still echoes in my head from time to time, my brain sort of "recorded" it...and plays it from time to time...



and my brain took a "photo" and now I have this image stuck in my head of a half-dead, suffering kitten laying next to a saucer of milk...and I still have this sick feeling in my nervous system of what it felt like to scoop his limp body up with a snow shovel while he might have still been alive and fling him into a wooded area of my yard...



I wonder if I killed him when I pushed him out from under the car??...maybe he was in a fragile condition...he stopped meowing after I did that...I was on my way to the gym and when I left my house to leave, there he was...lying motionless...I thought I heard him breathing after I picked him up in the snow shovel...



it was before I scooped him up that I got a good look at his face...most animals, you can't look into their eyes...dogs are easy to stare down...you eyeball them and they are always the first to turn away...or if they are an aggressive dog they will start to growl at you because looking certain animals in the eye is a provocation...



I never really tried to hold a cat's gaze but I think they turn away, too...for a lot of the same reasons...my cat buddy...in this picture down below...if he was still alive, he was too weak to move...and so before I scooped him up I stared into his eyes...and if he was still alive and prescient then he was looking into mine...and for a moment he wasn't a "cat" and I wasn't a "person", we were just two living things...



he had beautiful eyes...very, very light gray eyes...and cute little teeth...and his paws were folded over as he lay on his back...kind of like a dog who likes to get his belly rubbed...and I looked into eyes, with his eyelids half down...



I wanted to pick him up and cuddle him or cradle him or something...I wanted to do SOMETHING to ease his pain...but who knows if he was dying from poison or dehydration then maybe handling him would have caused him even more pain...and plus I was sort of scared to touch him because of fleas or something...or I was afraid to touch something that was dead...



but I was just helpless to do anything...I couldn't save his life and I couldn't even do anything to ease his pain...the poor dear...he didn't deserve this...what happened to him wasn't right...I didn't but know him for not even 16 hours when he died and it was the first time I saw his face but I wept for him and I mourned him...and still do...



I wonder what lessons I can learn from the entire experience...I feel like it made me a better person...I'm not 100% sure how, though...it's not like, "I was bad before, but now I'm good"...I always was sympathetic so certain animals and not to others...I still hate insects and squish them...I still have an undying urge to walk throughout the neighborhood and walk up to the barking dogs who make all that noise and smash them over the head with a hammer...



I suppose it sort of made me more of a cat lover...I like dogs, too, that are nice...but dogs do a lot of annoying things...dogs are schmucks a lot of the time, jumping up and down and acting like idiots...I think people favor dogs more than cats because dogs relate more to people..."man's best friend"...and dogs have more personality...the dog is the first animal that man has learned to domesticate and cats are the LAST...



I don't really know what lesson I've learned from this or how all of this has improved me...



I still feel sad now when I pull into or out of my driveway, knowing that he's down there...at least he's out of his misery now...