Bryan and I are enjoying the sunshine on a holiday weekend. We are out doing chores, him vacuuming the pool in his never-ending quest for perfect swimming, and me pulling ivy. He takes a break and shifts gears. Having the need to work some sort of power tool he heads for the shed further up our hill. He calls down to me...
"I have a moral dilemma".
"What?" I respond not being able to see his face and totally curious because he is the most moral person I have ever known, how can he have a moral dilemma?
He informs me that he has discovered a kitten near the shed, apparently abandoned by it's mother. My jaw drops in response and in a flash I am entertaining ideas of nursing the little creature to health...but wait... I am bounced back to reality. We are a no pet family for various reasons one of which is I am extremely alergic... especially to cats.
In any case I am compelled to take a look, and the moment I do my compassionate husband says...
"Now it's your moral dilemma". Him knowing me well enough that safe to say I will deal with the situation practically. Having been born on a farm, although short-lived, the few years I spent there taught me that mother nature is cruel and kittens abandoned by their mothers tend not to survive for a reason. But I put on my trusty garden gloves and pick it up. It is tiny and grey with blue eyes...
I recognize it because there is a stray wild that comes in our yard with the same features. In fact our neighbor harbors many cats that are very efficient at making little cats which makes the moment less romantic. We have viewed them as pests.
Never the less the little thing is oh-so-cute, but I see that it is indeed ill, like it has a cold, but otherwise fairly strong even spunky. So what is the right thing to do? Tending to it and making it a family pet may work for some but that is not this family. So at my husband's suggestion I tote it over to the neighbor's to see if they would like to add it too their brood. They are not home. Walking back still holding this tiny grey ball of fur I know full well that it is probably going to die. As I enter the backyard wondering what to do I spot the cat that I suspect is mom and head toward it. Being wilder than tame it doesn't want to get too close so I am left holding this kitten. The only option present (other than calling the humane society) is to place the little thing in the vicinity of it's parents and so I stick him through the hole in the fence(the one in which the cat's travel freely between our yard and our neighbor's) and wait to see what happens.
Well, the little thing has imprinted on me so after I put it down in view of it's own kind, it looks up and makes a run for me instead. Great. So I pick it up with my gloved hands and turn it around, facing the neighbor's and coax it to move in that direction. Away from me. It starts to go and I know that chances are the mother is going to reject it as she had from the start, but it is really the only chance it has for survival. And so I hope.
I walk away, and as I start to turn back my husband says..."Don't look back".
I know it is the right thing to do, even though it seems so cruel. All I could do was aim the kitten in the right direction. It had to do the rest. I prayed it could, but I still felt awful.
Abandoning the rest of our chores Bryan and I went in the house. He made me a margarita.
A little later he had to go to the store in pursuit of summertime burgers to fry for dinner. The moment he left I went outside to look for the kitten. Just to check to see if it was still lost. It was no where to be found. I was proud of it. Although I didn't really know where it ended up, I knew it wasn't where I left it.
I went back inside thinking about the kitten and wondered how often God aims me in the right direction with real clarity on what I should do next, only to come back to find me sitting where he left me.
Blair, nothing gets to me like these kinds of animal stories... even though im not an animal lover by any stretch... today at church a bird ran into the window- a tiny little one- and we were sure it was going to die and it was just awful. i feel your pain.
its stupid and sunday schoolish in a lot of ways, but im always comforting myself by thinking about a giant bird heaven where they are all healthy and there arent any cars or polluting humans and god just lets them live in peace... oh yeah and they dont have to eat other animals either.