Have you ever witnessed a death? Please excuse me if I asked you a silly question you might not want to hear. It is no escaping from the fact that death enters every door of people. But as you and I naturally feel, death is horrible and “I” can’t bear it. I witnessed the death of my uncle, my mother’s young brother. I couldn’t stand near him at the last minute of his life. He held my mother’s hands and said a few fading words which were apologies for all the michievous things he did during his lifetime. I am now talking about death out of grief. Obviously, it’s about my cat’s story. But you are probably wondering why I am talking about my cat. What’s the value and benefits of listening to my story? My answer is yes yes and yes. Cats are everywhere and equally important, but my cat, this cat has made me feel she is like a human. She was just about one-year old but had given birth to 10 kitties!!! All of her kitties are all alive except her. That’s again death I have been speaking about. She has sacrificed her life because of her own children.
One evening, she returned home very soaking wet, with mud all over her body. She went to one of the water cisterns, licked some water and fell to the ground. My mother and sister were wondering what happened. They rushed to wash the mud out of the cat with shampoo. They noticed the cat was really pale and cold, really cold! They blamed themselves for washing the cat with cool water we had after the rain fell to the earth some hours ago. The cat was helpless. She only opened her eyes. Before she wasn’t like this. She was like a monkey, running away from our catch and never letting loose of her own control. However, this time she was like a dead human body, nothing could retrieve her life, could it? I was thinking. My mother and sister again hurried her to our gas cooker and ignited it. We warmed her by putting her over the little-burning cooker. We moved her body around over the cooker to give her more warm. Seemingly, she didn’t look any better because she didn’t give any response, even a meow sound! Meow meow!!! I was yearning everything in the world for her sound, her sweet mama sound to her kids monkeying around her. She didn’t! My mother and sister were giving her encouraging words to make her conscious, though they knew she couldn’t understand. But they did say the words from their heart, their paining and shaky heart. “Ah Meow, be better, get up now, you must be okay, ” said my mother. They did the heating time and time again. The cat’s body began to feel warm and its fur started to dry. But the fire of the gas cooker also burned its fur a little while my mother was trying her best to bring warmth to her body. We put a piece of warm cloth around her body. My oldest sister went to buy milk for her. We didn’t know one thing would happen if we were careless and ignorant!!! We let her drink a little bit. She sipped a very small amount of milk to her body. She didn’t feel like eating anything at all! We wanted to give everything we could afford now. Raw or cooked fish or beaf or pork!!! She didn’t even turn her head towards the fried fish we had just made for her. She lied inside the warm cloth, collecting her energy. She opened her eyes and looked at her kitties playing around her. It was a shock about why this time her kitties didn’t like being near her. It was unusual for me. Did the kitties sense her death? Usually, they played near their mother and drank the milk from her breasts. So again this thought was jumping in my mind: The kitties were unusual this time as they refused to be near her. She could do nothing except lying there. All she could do was looking and panting. Yes, she was panting, breathing in and out very quickly as I could see her breathing. All we knew was that she probably fell into water somewhere and tried to get out of it on her own. She was in this difficult situation until the night. We all supposed she was becoming better and everything was okay.
Until the night, 09/August/2007, my mother and sister used their hairdrier to heat her whole body. We did this many times. The lamps inside the house started to fade while we were using the electronic hairdrier. We did it every time she made a sound like hiccuping. My sisters and I took turn to stroke her body, her tummy, her head, her back to make her know that we are giving her our love. We wanted to let her know we love her. She was one of our family.
In the morning, 10/August/2007, at about 7, her breath stopped. I didn’t know who took her breath away. Whether it’s God or someone from hell!!! We didn’t know why!!! My mother cried! We all cried but nobody saw that. Our heart was torn down. Nobody knew! We were crying for her. Each of us hid our tears. I knew they all cried. Me too! And they knew that I cried. At her last breath, she opened her eyes, trying to find her kids near there. Yes, they were near there. Those small cats are just 2 months old. They still need milk from time to time even though they can eat fish and rice. And she died when I was upstairs, while I was dreaming away about my life with my tears rolling down my cheeks. I went down to see her. The poorest and most heart-breaking state was that she died with her eyes open!!! Her soft poor harmless body made me unable to control my grief of thinking of her. We know that she was really thinking of her kids. She took very good care of her own kids. Alive, she looked at us sadly when we played uncaringly with her kitties. She gave us a look that a poor mother could give when she saw her kids were being abused. We are sorry! We burried her body in our farm. Her body lied down near a coconut tree. I will always remember this saddest day. I was crying, I am crying not because I am suffering. I do these because of her honesty and her maternal care of her children.
We want to question “Who killed this cat?” You might think she died of exhaustion. No, after she died, we went to find any clue near the place she came out from. Usually, she and her kids visited two houses, which are not friendly wit
h us. We found her vomit on the grass near there. We knew that SHE WAS POISONED. It’s impossible to think of it, but my father, an expert about poison, told that she died of poison. I wanted to cry out “HOW STUPID OF ME!” As I said, “We didn’t know one thing would happen if we were careless and ignorant!!!”. We could have given her some honey to lessen the effects of the poison all over her body. One night, my God. The poison was working inside her body every minute and second!!!. We didn’t know how much she was really suffering inside of her body. If she had been a human like us, she would have clearly told her what was happening to her. What in her body hurt the most! She couldn’t speak, she’s a cat, but she bore every pain. Who gave her the poison? Or did she eat anything poisonous herself? But she used to eat a toad, a frog and other insects. She got the same reaction by throwing something out. But this time it wasn’t the same at all. She threw up but this time her breath was taken away too. At last we knew that, her kids liked going to those two houses and she always followed them, just to take care of them. Now I can still remember her dying state, her open eyes.
Yes, I know, you are saying that I shouldn’t weep and crying doesn’t help bring her back again. I know! Though she was simply a cat, a she cat, a mama cat, she had some humane feelings in herself. She loved her kids as mothers did. She sacrificed her life to look after her kitties. Every moment of her life, she walked, lied down and let her kitties drink milk from her body. Who claims that animals mean nothing? There shouldn’t be any comparison between the feelings of the two, the animals’ and the people’s. That’s because ANIMALS ARE PEOPLE TOO.
I know I am a human being. I can be sad, worried, happy, disappointed, mortified and can fall to the zero point in life. And of course I can raise my feet and get to the highest points too. This also reminds me of a buddhist story. This story occured during the presence of Buddha on the earth. There was a woman whom people said did a lot of good deeds in her past life. This life, she got the great gift. She looked like a 20 year-old girl and looked younger than her great-great grandchildren. Her appearance was immortal. She lived but she did only to see every one of her relatives, her children or grandchildren or great-great grandchildren, passing away in her lifetime. Once, her great-great child died. She held her in her arm, sobbing and running towards Buddha who was meditating under the Banyan tree. She asked Buddha to revive her great-great child’s life. God Buddha responded, calming her, “Your child has passed away and it’s no natural law to bring back the life. He has gone to another life sooner or later. Please don’t sob. Now please think, how many relatives do you have?”. “I have so many relatives and I survive all of them,” she replied. “So, will you weep for everyone of them when each passes away?” asked Buddha. This made her ponder and reduce her grief and this is the wisdom that I want to possess.
Hi Nila,
It was wonderful to read ya detailed description of ya lovely mama cat’s death. I felt sorry for it, but as you said death is natural. Hmmm, great writhing!!!
Jupiter
PS. I had a great time signing in coz of password and username problem.
Hi again my sidekicker,
So happy happy to be able to leave comment in ya blog. I have been intending to do so for such a long time. Now everything goes according to the plan so I’ll be back as soon as and as much as possible.
See ya
Hi Sis, that’s a sorrow.
I do agree with you for that. That’s the truth and no one ever escape from it.
Chesda.
Thanks so much, all my brothers. Another bad news, one of the 5 kittens was dead this morning. I don’t know how to screw enough courage to go on being cheerful.