I accidentally killed my kitten

Hi to all: I want to say again how much of a help you have been to me. The tears still flow for the poor kitty, but only intermittently now instead of continuously. The two remaining kittens are still friendly as before, but it seemed to me that they were very skittish when I walked past them this evening. Maybe they know what happened or perhaps I’m projecting my guilt onto them.

My mom is having difficulty accessing this website. Something about the password not being accepted. It’s probably human error since neither of us are tech savvy. My mom is a brilliant person who went directly into the third grade when applying for kindergarten. She already knew how to read and understood many basic math skills. She was chief lab tech in a hospital for years after graduating college but quit at the top of her carreer to become an artist who mastered in drawing, pen and ink, calligraphy, batique, silk-screeing, ceramics, jewelry making, and metal work in the form of a business she started where she made hand made cookie cutters which she sold at the Reniassance Pleasure Faire in Agoura, California. (I’m sure I’m forgetting a few of her disciplines) She would be able to have more success with her computer if she had instruction, just as I would. Also, both of us are operating ancient computers that just can’t do the things the new ones can do. She asked me to send you guys a poem I wrote specifically to her. She actually asked me to write a poem about a problem she was having with her cat, that Sparky would never let her work on her computer, always insisting that my mom sit and hold Sparky’s paws instead of typing on the computer. She also asked me to send you one of her haiku as well as some that I have written.

Here is what I came up with for her:

Kitty’s Lament

I need to work on my computer

While kitty says, “I bet I’m cuter

Than anything you might see there,

So why do you just sit and stare?

Pay attention to me now:

Pet me, scratch me, feed me chow!

Don’t just sit there and ignore;

Don’t you love me any more?

I must try to get between

You and your computer screen!

You must hold my paws, my friend,

So that you will comprehend

That I will do what I must do

To finally get through to you.

And at last I’ll make you see

You must never ever ignore me!

My cat Scooter gives me a little trouble as far as my computer is concerned too, but of a different variety. My mom’s cat literally stops her from typing, while my fat tomcat insists that there is only one chair in the house that he can use, and of course, it’s the computer chair. I could chuck him off it of course, but he cries so miserably when I put him in another chair that to avoid the problem I simply try to fit both of into the same chair, though it’s a tight squeeze.

Here is one of the many haiku she has written that she asked me to send:

Schulcz notwithstanding,

Happiness is a warm kitten

So says mycat.

My mom is going to try again tomorrow to log on to The Daily Kitten and talk dierctly with you wonderful people. If she still can’t get it done, she wants me to send more of her haiku poems for her and I agreed. Since she wrote volumes of haiku poems I thought I’d try a few of my own and here is one of them:

My kitty attacks

viciously mauling, shredding

A fierce paper bag.

I have also written a number of English sonnets, but none about cats unfortunately. I’ll work on one. Again thank you for the encouragement, comfort and feeling of family that you have provided. You have all earned your heavenly crowns!

Whistl

You and others like you who are relating their similar stories have done much to help me in releasing at least a small portion of the guilt I felt. It is still very raw as it was only the other day for me and I know the kitten faced much pain when she passed. The other kitties seem to miss her. When they come trotting into the roon, before I have time to think about it, I find myself inadvertently looking for the third kitten. This only happens for a second, I don’t continue to look for her. In that split second of time it flashes home that she is gone, then the emotion returns of why she is gone, and although I know I shouldn’t feel guilty, I still know it is my fault. I find myself apologizing to Mama and kittens and giving them little kisses. I trod much more carefully now and have promised them it will never happen again. I grew up with dozens of cats in my house all at the same time. Back then I never stepped on any of them. Before you beautiful people linked me to the the Rainbow Bridge poem, I had no idea of the poem’s power. In fact, though I had heard the term before, I didn’t even know it WAS a poem. Now, strangely enough in an email I sent to my mom the day before I read the poem, I told her that I hoped the kitten would see me in heaven come running up and tell me that she knew I loved her and didn’t mean for this to happen and then let me give her a big hug. Almost the exact same sentiment of that wonderful poem. I hope to meet in heaven also the unknown author of that poem so that I can give that person a big hug too.

Joan you have the added guilt of having to tell your neighbor what happened and then feeling their pain as well. That would make it so much worse for me as well, if I had to break another person’s heart in this way. That double guilt is more than you should have had to handle. Now it is time for me to learn from the graciousness everyone here at TDK have expressed and the lesson I have learned is to tell you to not blame yourself. When I was just a mere little whelp and not an old man of fifty-one, a friend of mine’s brother killed a liitle girl who came dashing into traffic while driving literally a block away from his house. No charges were ever filed and even the parents of the little girl didn’t blame him as they saw the whole thing and knew their tiny little daughter of only three years of age was at fault as she ran straight from their front door right into the street. Their front door was almost flush up against the street and it only took a tiny bit of time for her to dash away right into traffic. Next door neighbors acted as witnesses that the little girl on her own escaped the front door and ran directly into traffic. I saw the house after the accident and immediately understood why the parents hadn’t been charged with negligence. Whomever built that apartment complex however should have been informed of and forced to change the way they do business, understanding the dangerousness of having a front door mere inches away from one of our city’s busiest streets and never desiging a building in that manner again.