in memoriam

I could tell by her approach, at dusk, that she was not quite alone. That she had... something. Her gait not as lithe, a shadow on her white chest, her steps, a little tentative.

It was a small bird, coloring to match hers. Wings sticking out of her mouth on two sides. Held gently, all things relative. (No doubt to prolong the utility of the still-living toy.)

It took some effort, but I got the bird, chased away the cat. The cat, ours. The bird, no one's.

The bird had a tiny wing wound, and a spot on her short, fragile neck where feathers were missing. I put a tiny spot of Neosporin on the wound, some vitamin E oil.

I attempted to nurse it to health. Put it in a box. With newspaper, New York Times articles referencing the disaster in the Gulf. A soft nest in one corner of paper towel. I took to calling it "her."

By morning, she seemed to be surprisingly doing well. She would hop a little, and chirp loudly, fly a short distance in the bathroom. Young, but feathered. Not a baby bird - but small bits of fluff still clung just under her wings. An adolescent that Annabeth dubbed "Fred."

While articles on the web seemed to align, faithfully telling me not to attempt to raise a small, especially wounded bird, on my own - wildlife rehab centers are closed on Memorial Day.

Annabeth was especially concerned. She didn't sleep the first night, convinced the bird would die. She said prayers, she cried, she woke up - propelled to find us two floors below - caught in an un-recountable nightmare.

I attempted to feed the bird - water, which she drank a little of; a watery cat food mixture, a tiny bit of mushy banana. She wouldn't eat. Her chirps continued, but her hops looked more enfeebled.

I was twitchy that second night. Job hunting online, unwilling - somehow - to go to bed. Eventually, I gave up. I opened the closed bathroom door, annoyed that the light had been left on. I looked in the box. She had given up, too. More thoroughly than I.

One bird. Taken by one cat. I dug a hole, chipping through Georgia clay and poorly disguised construction debris. Ten short inches down, maybe a foot. I said a quiet prayer. It was two AM.

When Annabeth wakes up, it will be June. And there will be no little bird to drive out to the rehab center - our one plan for the first day of the first full week of summer. She will cry, and I will feel responsible.

Innocent bird, gone. Guilty cat, here. It is her nature to feed on the small things, coloring matching hers. It is her wont to crouch in the grass, pounce, take, celebrate. We will love her no less, and we will mourn her next victory.

Squirrel

It's gotten to where I can handle the carnage.

Small animals, usually barely-recognizable birds, feet removed, wings off-kilter. It is ugly, distasteful gore. But I can remove myself a little. Scoop them up into baggies, place them in the trash. Lower the lid.

I feel some guilt about this, but our turf is about two inches deep. If you know Atlanta, you know then that at the high points (where we live) all is rocks and clay. Not burial ground material, really, unless you have a back hoe. Besides, given the volume of 'prizes' our young cat has deposited on our stoop... you would soon realize that one year with a huntress cat on our tiny plot - and we would have a mini-Arlington cemetery. At some point, burial is impractical - and I have no suitable incinerator of my own.

Yesterday, though - into our quiet late Sunday afternoon, having Sunday-schooled, homeworked, and erranded, with grill lit and evening approaching - Sebastian came in from the back deck with "Mom! Chessie did it again! This time a Rare and Exotic animal!"

My stomach sank, though I doubted his "Rare and Exotic" claim. I shhhed him. The littler littles did not need to know about this.

But I could handle it. Frankly, after the Helter Skelter bird scene two weeks back -three birds. One stoop. Many parts- I was prepared for gruesome.

...But there she was.

She would look asleep, except for the angle. And the wide open eyes, still bright, extra-large, coal black. The death was recent. A flying squirrel. Sweet faced. Wide-eyed. Still warm through my baggie.

I touched her with one finger. Crazy soft. Fur coat soft. Kitten chin soft. With the baggie, I lifted her little arm, saw how the skin connected, expanded. Her tiny exposed chest suggested she had nursed recently. A litter somewhere, abandoned?

I put her in the trash and, at midnight, was haunted by my conscience. It didn't seem right.

So, after work out, coffee, morning chaos, cereal complaints, multi-staged flurry out the door, and return home... I got a spade.

I found another corner, under the deck. I dug. Top layer: weeds and last year's pinestraw (reminding me again that I really must do something with the yard), then rock and broken concrete, a pine cone. Lots of clay. Formulas in my head - if people average 5'7" and burial is at 6 feet... how deep do I go for a sweet faced squirrel? I dug a little further, a little wider so the body wouldn't be bent.

I was reminded of biology and anatomy - of Bill, my beloved lab partner - a vet now, and even he couldn't have helped this creature - getting married next April. Of dissections and formaldehyde fumes. I was always fascinated and horrified at once. And so it was with this creature - the arm flaps that helped her glide (though, where, I wondered? In our thoroughly developed neighborhood, even the most ambitious squirrel could not glide tree-top to tree top - not without high gusting winds and unusually developed flying skills) the smaller, flatter tail. She was in-tact. It made it harder than skinned minks, fetal pigs - and later, those eviscerated birds.

Since here, with Kitten (now grown, aka Chessie, Chestnut, Miss Chesapeake, Chessica) the death toll has reached over a dozen. Chipmunks, mice, a couple of tiny snakes, two velvetty moles, many birds. That bunny. They say either your cat is a hunter or it isn't. Clearly, this one can hunt. And is compelled to do so.

I lowered the small, lovely creature. I said a prayer. I patted earth. I was glad, again, that children were elsewhere and mostly had no idea. I was relieved that she was in the earth, and not on top of the Herbie Curbie.

"Remember men that we are dust and unto dust we shall return." I sighed. And returned to my day.

Peace

Late, I ran out the back door to go pick up AB from gymnastics.  

And there... on the back stoop... a bunny.

Not a rabbit.  

Not alive.  

A small (but not tiny), half-cat sized bunny.  Sweet and very broken.  Stiff, with some entrails exposed - only enough to know that this was no gentle battle.  Killed dramatically and violently by the "good cat," the cat, at 11 months, still referred to mostly as "Kitten."

In a rush, I quickly wrapped the bunny in newspaper from the recycling bin, and placed her in the garbage can, on top of the trash.  

After dinner, Bass, for the first time in his nine years on planet Earth said, "I'll take out the trash, Mom." 

My response was swift and suspicious.  

I had, after all, a body concealed in the back yard.

That bunny body continued to haunt me through night reading and dinner eating and bath drawing and bandaid applying and bedtime.

What the heck would I do with it?  

Before living here, we lived in Florida, on a school campus.  Adjacent to a canal on two sides, a nature preserve on a third.  We had access to a dumpster, and an outdoor cat.  Over the years that dumpster received many things - rats, both whole and scattered; mice; fish heads.  And once, a very large and very dead iguana.  I had no problem tossing those in and forgetting about them.  

Here, with a different cat, we have had a mole, a couple mice, several baby snakes.  Once, a chipmunk, which was a little sad.  Each, unceremoniously thrown into the Curbie.  Probably put first in a plastic bag - but ultimately garbage, nonetheless.

But this...this was a small rabbit.  A bunny.  

My sister calls me "Bun" and refers to my children and hers as "the bunnies."  My daughter has bunny prints on her walls.  Bass' baby quilt, that he still sleeps with at 9, is covered in them. Because it was made for him by his godmother, his first baby sign was "rabbit," and it was both how he asked for his quilt and how he referenced his Aunt Agatha.

Before we bought this house, I drove by it at night, and a bunny was hopping across the yard. When we moved in, we saw one again - days after sleeping in it the first time.  One hopped past on Easter eve looking frantic, like it was 'on the clock.'

Bunnies don't go in trash cans.  

Maybe we could have a small funeral.  The littles could learn something about love and death and symbolism and animal instincts and the temporal nature of beauty.  We could bury the young rabbit together, sing a hymn or "Rainbow Connection."

They would be solemn.

We could say prayers.  Pick roses from the rose bushes.  Each softly pet one ear.  Bury the bunny with a carrot, and something else bunnies love best, like the burial of an Egyptian god king.  (We would no doubt have a long discussion about what that something else might be, knowing, as we do, scant little about the aesthetic preferences of bunnies.)

Bass would be either curious and scientific, "can I dig it up when it's bones?" Or oddly dramatic, emerging after bed while we are settled into Lost bawling about "I feel bad for that poor bunny. Why do we have Kitten anyway? I NEVER KNEW THAT BUNNY!"  

pPod would be matter-of-fact, with a stream of questions.  "Is 'dead' like being asleep, Momma? Will that bunny eat that carrot in heaven? Was Chessie trying to eat that bunny?"  It would become That Bunny, and the questions would continue for years:  "Remember, Momma?  When Chessie killded That Bunny and we buried it?  Member?"

Ah, but Annabeth.  She would be conflicted, possibly devastated.  She would feel betrayed by Chessie, the heretofore love of her life.  She would want to wrap the bunny in a silk scarf.  She would ask if she could do that, and I would find it hard to say no.  She would draw something for the bunny, to place in her shoebox.  She would give Chessie hurt sidelong glances for weeks - maybe years.  She would say, softly, "She didn't mean it, right, Momma?  It's just what cats do?" But it would be unconvincing.

After everyone was successfully bedded, I heaved a big sigh and trudged to the garage.  I got the edger.  I lifted the stiff broken thing in its paper wrapper out of the trash.  With the edger, I dug a hole, while in my pajamas.  Through pine straw, an inch of soil, three inches of red clay. Chunks of construction waste.  I went down 8, 10 inches.  A foot.  I placed her in.  I layered in the debris.  I patted it down. I scattered the straw on top.

I waved to the neighbors (and made a few "edging" moves, as if, well, maybe I'm out doing a little inspirational gardening... in my pajamas... at late dusk...)  

There will be plenty of small, soft, broken things.  Things we can bury together.  Teachable moments that come from soothing the child that found the thing, no longer warm and soft and woodland-creature-esque.  

But not tonight.  Tonight, there was no reason to drag them into my small sadness.

Sleep well, little bunnies.