The Little Kitten
by Beth Goodwin.........................................
I was driving home from Savannah after a morning inservice, thinking of the errands I would run and planning a nap before heading back up this way from Fort Stewart for the evening inservice. I wasn't going my normal route. I decided to head down Abercorn instead. "Great, a wreck," I thought as I came to a stop. Odd, though, that I saw smoking tires on a little white sports car. I figured either he was screeching to a halt or he was gunning his engine to get around whatever had us stopped. Whether he was involved in the scene I came upon I'll never know. When traffic started moving, I saw a woman standing outside of her car in the right hand lane. She looked distraught and I looked down in the direction she was looking. In the street was a kitten no more than 5 months old. He had dirty black fur with white markings on his face similar to a tuxedo cat. He was scrawny. Worst of all, he was frantically clawing at the road with his front paws, his back paws not moving, his upper body twisted while he tried to drag himself out of the street. Everyone was looking at him. Without even thinking, I threw my car into park and ran to the kitten. The lady said, "I don't know what to do," and shrugged her shoulders. I grabbed the kitten in my hands and laid him across my left forearm, turning to run back to my car. The UPS driver next to me asked if I was going to take him to a vet. The motorcycle driver next to me asked the same thing. To both, I said yes, that was the plan. They kept traffic blocked so that I could get out in front of everyone else and make a U-turn to race to the closest vet. While I was running for my car, I held the kitten close and kept saying, "I got you, baby. You'll be ok now. I got you." He had no external injuries except what looked like raging eye infections. I wondered if he was blind and had accidentally gotten into the road, or if he darted out and then froze in fear. I'll never know that answer. I had put him on the floor in front of my passenger seat, fearing that if I tried to hold him, he would just keep trying to climb away out of fear and pain. I regret that decision now. He kept trying to walk, his upper body flailing while his back half never moved. The ICU nursin in me ran through the injuries: Spinal fractures with spinal cord involvement, fractured pelvis, possible fractured back legs...not to mention internal injuries that were probably causing hemorrhage. Before I could get to the vet - I was less than a minute away - he stopped flailing and laid on his side, his mouth open, gasping for air. "Stay with me, baby! You're gonna make it!" I cried out, tears rolling down my face. Flying into the vet clinic's parking lot, I slammed the car into park and jumped out, racing around to the passenger's side to fling open the door. Goddess! He's not breathing!! Scooping him up in my arms, I started chest compressions on him and ran into the vet's office. "Help me! Someone help me! He was hit by a car and he's dying!" My t-shirt felt wet; his bladder had let go. One of the techs took him from me and I started sobbing. I filled out their intake form - probably pretty illegibly - and before I could finish, the tech came out to tell me that Little Kitten didn't make it. Bursting into fresh tears, I told them that I wished to see him. Leaning down onto the exam table, I curled my arms around him, scratching his head and crying. The tech asked what had happened and I told her. "You're ok now, Little Kitten," I whispered to him. "You don't hurt anymore. You don't have to live on these cruel streets anymore. My Miss Tigger is waiting for you at the Rainbow Bridge. She'll show you around. You won't be hungry or thirsty ever again. You won't be without a Mama to watch over you. You can run and play all you want." When I felt the tech's hand on my back and a soft, "Let us take care of him now", I kissed his head, closed his eyes, and went back out to the front. They thanked me for caring enough about a stray/abandoned/lost little kitten to bring him in without a thought as to cost or dumping him with them and leaving. I could never do such a thing. I sat in my car and cried for a good 30 minutes before I could drive home. I'm crying now as I type this. That little boy never had a chance. He was either feral or he was abandoned/lost/stray. He knew only hunger, thirst, and fear. In those last minutes of his life, he knew terror and pain. I wish to the Goddess that I had held onto him while I drove, not laying him down to wonder what was happening to him now. I tell myself that in those last minutes, he knew some love...that someone cared and tried to help him. He felt kind hands, protective arms, a soft voice trying to get him to safety and medical care. But he died on the floor of my truck and I have trouble forgiving myself for that. Maybe one day I'll be able to...I'm going to set up a residency here for him. If you read this, please stop by his residency and say some prayers for him. He was just a little kitten...
Comments would be appreciated by the author, Beth Goodwin
 
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