Remorse

Yesterday I got an email pitch for an affiliate program.  In an effort to be more personal, the author of the email mentioned a recent post that had made her laugh.

First, I’m not so sure what is funny about a sewage back up in your house.  And my psychotic cat?  I guess I can understand why someone might assume that was funny.  I mean people spend hours on the internet watching cats do crazy shit, right?  But this incident was not funny.  Ridiculous, yes.  Funny, definitely not.

But her simple uninformed remark brought back all the sadness, guilt, and anger that I’ve been trying to ignore the last two weeks.

I have gone back and forth about even telling anyone.  I haven’t even told many of my close friends.  Because I didn’t want to say the words, “I killed my cat.”

I have tried my best to rationalize my actions.  Telling myself it wasn’t safe to have such an unstable animal around a toddler.  That it was “for the best.”  That life would be easier without her.

But I don’t believe it.

Malibu was wonderful with Allison.  And while she wasn’t particularly affectionate unless she needed something, she seemed to know when we needed her.

She was with me when I was constantly sick throughout my pregnancy.  She would come running when Allison was upset.  She even seemed worried when Denver got so very, very sick last year.

We don’t know what set her off this time.  She just hissed at the dog for no apparent reason.  But we had been down that road once before and we knew that her rage wasn’t fleeting.  We knew we had to intervene before she lost it. 

I know we could’ve handled the situation better.  That maybe she would have calmed down if we had just let her be.  But this time we had a little person in the house that we had to worry about.  And there was no way to predict the course of Malibu’s fury.

Even the next day, she was still angry.  Maybe it was because we had had to catch her with towels and brooms to lock her up.  Maybe it was because she was trapped in a kennel all night.  Maybe it was because she was still bitter at Denver for what she thought he did.  But the thought of further complicating our lives scared the hell out of me.  I didn’t think I could deal with more problems.

We had drawn the line in the sand many times with this cat.  Countless times I had said, “I swear, if she pees on ____ again, she’s gone.”  I had joked that if I was lucky, she would run away.  I had told myself for six years that I didn’t care.  But time and time again, we dismissed her indiscretions.  We cleaned up the mess and moved on.  Because we knew no one else would want her.

And now the time had come when we felt we couldn’t keep her.

I feel like I gave up on her.  That I should’ve done more to help her. 

But it’s too late now.