What Stopped Me in My Tracks (Literally)

There was a chilly autumn stillness in the air the day I found my beloved childhood cat Michi—dead—on the front lawn. Michi, the one I’d stuffed into baby strollers when he was just a tyke. Michi, whom I’d spanked multiple times for scratching the wood siding in the house. Michi, the little kitten I’d owned and loved for eleven years. 

I recall that I was home alone, and walking from the kitchen to the dining room to put something away when, outside the window, I beheld a gray lumpy heap on the grass and froze. I dropped what I was doing and ran barefoot outside through the crunchy dead leaves and stopped abruptly when I reached the lifeless body of my cat. Is he dead? I thought. Sick? Afraid that I might contract some sort of contagious disease, or that he might spring up from his rest and bite me in a rabid frenzy, I gingerly poked him with a stick I found on the ground. No response…and he was unusually stiff. Still unsatisfied with what might be a potential autopsy, I slowly kneeled down, eyeing the unnatural way in which he was positioned. Somewhat assured that I would not be infected by a virus, I bent over and listened for a heartbeat. Nothing. It was then that I noticed just how sunken in his eyes were, and this confirmed the worst. So there, in front of Main Street as cars and semis zoomed past, I sat in my ragged sweats and t-shirt and petted Michi’s soft and shiny fur.

When my dad finally got home, I met him outside with a shaky voice to tell him the bad news. He simply walked inside, grabbed a trash bag and shovel, and started for the front yard as I followed. Dad wrapped the black trash bag around Michi’s body and lifted it up. We both paused to observe the curious pose he was in—the spitting image of Wile E. Coyote right before he falls off a cliff. Even the expression was similar. Strange.

Reverently (and by reverently I mean me carrying Michi with arms outstretched as far away from my body as possible while the garbage bag flapped in the breeze), we transported him to the backyard and stopped underneath our Blue Spruce. Dad began to dig away at the ground, but about six inches deep, we realized that the roots from the tree were growing too close to the surface and too clustered to make much progress. My dad stood back and leaned against the shovel, thinking. “Well,” he said finally, “This is the only spot I can think to bury him. I don’t want to dig another hole in the grass.” I looked down at the hole skeptically.

“We can try,” I said and shrugged. We then proceeded to lower Michi into his miniature grave, but his tail proved to be a real troublemaker. The problem was that his body was so stiff from the rigor mortis that the tail wouldn’t bend or budge from its pin-straight position. We twisted and pulled as much as we dared, but the tail was not going in. Dad finally let out a huff and picked the shovel up again. Soon, a little mountain of dirt sat atop Michi and the troublesome tail, concealing it from daylight forevermore. I lugged a big rock and dropped it on the pile of dirt, only to have the impact expose the tip of the tail again. It took us a few tries, but at last Michi, all of Michi, was buried under a substantial amount of dirt and soil.

“Do you want to say a few words?” Dad asked solemnly. I opened my mouth to begin a speech about Michi’s friendship, loyalty, etc. But as I did, I looked over at my dad and something happened when our eyes met that made me…giggle. Then dad started to chuckle, too. Pretty soon, we were in tears, happy tears, over the absurdity of the situation. Morbid as it was, it was too ridiculous to not laugh. When our dog Britan began sniffing and pawing at the grave, it made us laugh even harder to the point that our stomachs hurt.

             I would love to think that Michi would have wanted it that way, but in reality, he was just a cat and to say that he had dying wishes would be silly and somewhat idiotic. Of course, I loved my cat, but I am glad his death was something I can look back at and think about sadly, and maybe laugh a little bit about too.