The sad Demise of Feisty the Third

We had a lot of pets growing up. Cats, a few dogs, rabbits, you name it. We also lost a lot of pets growning up. Some to the cars and semis that speed down our road, some to roaming (and probably bigger animals) and some naturally. When a pet went missing our mom often told us that it had found a wife (or husband) and had gone off to start a family.

I had a series of cats growning up that all looked a like. So they were Feisty, Feisty the Second, and Feisty the Third. The original Feisty must not really have been all that Feisty cause he let me do this to him.

That's me! And Poor Feisty...

I don't remember much about the Second but the Third was a nice cat as outdoor farm cats go. He died when I was probably 12-13...stretched out across the landing step in our garage. I have this real problem with freshly dead things. It does not matter species or size, I get vertigo and dizzy and just don't feel so great. I'm awful at funerals and usually refuse to do the go up to the casket and pray bit. One of my chores was to take care of all the rabbits. If any of them met a natural death, which were few and far between, I made my dad take care of the dead one before I went in to feed/water/clean them.

So when Feisty the Third died stretched out across the step I could not just leave him there like that. Neither of my parents was home to dispose of him, and there was no way I was doing that, and it was both undignified and icky to just leave him. I got a blanket and covered him with it. I felt better for about five minutes until I realized that to anyone coming into the house, the blanket was just a blanket. I mean, what if my mom came home from the store and stepped on him. A) ew and b) ew. So, I made a sign and placed it prominently on top of the blanket.

This story often gets trotted out by my family who finds it all very hilarious. Was I wrong to not want anyone to step on my dead cat? I think rather not.

Update

After reading this my mom reminded me of the rest of the story; about which I had not only completely forgotton but have no memory of. She did eventually come home from the grocery store (or wherever she was) and after laughing herself silly over my note, went to fetch a box/coffin. We were never the 'have a funeral for our pet' kinda kids...maybe because we lost so many to the road, the woods, or the dinner table, but for some reason Feisty the Third got a funeral.

According to Mom, he was kind of hard to get into the box. He'd died all stretched out and rigour had already set making it both difficult and probably somewhat gross to force into whatever container she'd found. Then we apparently buried poor 'ole Feisty (you don't want to know what happened to the ones that didn't get buried) and my mom sang Amazing Grace. Mom is a trained mezzosoprano. I guess not many people can say they've sent off their pets quite that well.

Interestingly enough she's now the funeral coordinator at my family's parish. I guess Feisty's funeral was good job training.

The person there looking not so amused with the shovel (yes that's a shovel) would be my dad. I'm sure he was not amused or moved in any way by poor kitty's demise.