By contributor and group member, Just Jodi
1983. I was in sixth grade.
“Socksey!” I called from the front doorway. Every night, after dinner, before bedtime, I would call the cat to come inside. We’d only had the cat for maybe 6 months at this point. I had “earned” the cat like I had to earn everything else – good scores on math tests, not bringing home homework, good behavior, and who knows what else. I worked hard to earn the cat.
I had previously colored during recess to make a picture extra beautiful, and my teacher-step-mom said I was doing homework, so I hadn’t earned the guinea pig the previous year that another teacher wanted to give away at the end of the school year. But somehow, I had done better this year and earned this kitten.
Every night, I called the kitten to come inside, and every night, the kitten ran to me. We would play for a while, he would eat his dinner, and then it was bedtime.
This time, I stood in the doorway, called my cat, and a car on the street stopped near a neighbor’s driveway, its headlights shining.
Socksey didn’t come home, which was weird. I closed the door and proceeded to get ready for bed.
Hours later, I was lying in bed, unable to sleep, and I heard my parents singing hymns in the basement. We lived in a split-level house, so the basement was just below my room.
I got up to see what was going on.
My stepmom was sitting in the hallway outside my dad’s office. She told me Dad was in his office, singing to the cat. The cat had been hit by a car, and they were trying to raise it from the dead.
She said that Dad was singing directly to the cat, but she wasn’t able to go do that. She didn’t want to see the cat. Dad was singing the hymns directly to the cat, who was lying on a wooden board in his office, but my stepmom was outside in the hallway, singing through the door.
I felt obligated to help protect my step-mom’s emotions, so I sat outside in the hallway with her, even though I wanted to be inside the office, as bold as my dad, singing directly to the cat, too.
We sat there for probably 2 hours, singing hymns to the cat.
I don’t remember how the evening ended. But I guess I eventually went to bed, figuring Dad would raise it from the dead.
My cat never came back to life, and Dad buried it out in the back yard. My stepmom didn’t want to know where, and Dad never told me where he buried the cat.
In retrospect, as a 50+ year old woman now, whose dad died over 10 years ago, whom I miss terribly, I wish I had gone in the room to sing the hymns with my dad. I wish I had that core memory with my dad, even as disturbing as it probably sounds. I missed so many opportunities to do big things like this with my dad, because I always felt like I had to protect my step-mom’s emotions.
I feel sad about this whole experience.
Another sad thing about all this is that I wasn’t given room to grieve or talk about missing my cat, the one I had earned. I didn’t know who to talk to about my grief. I didn’t have a therapist, and didn’t know I could approach my teacher about it, either, since I had been chastised about talking with my teacher in school about Christian Science in a previous school year. I never got another animal until after college.
I remember grieving that cat for months and months, crying alone in my bed at night, or trying not to cry during class at school. I felt so alone with my grief.
My stepmom repeatedly said, ” Isn’t it great that the cat died the day before we were going to take it to the vet to get ‘fixed?’ This way, we didn’t have to spend that money!” To her, this was some kind of amazing healing. I am still bewildered by this viewpoint.
I was sad, and she was delighted and grateful.
This site offers support resources to help individuals negotiate a transition in a manner that best fits their needs and convictions. We do not advocate any one particular path but acknowledge that there are many legitimate pathways that can be personally and spiritually fulfilling.