Sadness and scary

I will write about the dance later today - once I get the photos off the camera. But I wanted to write about something that was a very sad ending to our fun night that turned into a relief this morning.

Because of all the stuff and boys we had we took both our truck and Mary's car to the school for the dance. So, as we were coming home last night, I was in front with Mary's car and Jared was with me. We were just chatting a bit about the dance, how Jared said it was fun, and also listening to the music on the radio.

I turned onto our street and as we were getting close to our house there was something small in the road on our side but not too small. So I started to swerve around it to the left, and as I did the headlights went over it enough that I saw what it looked like.

I pulled over and quickly put the car in park - on the left side of the road - and said out loud to Jared, "My god! That's Dot!" And so we both quickly jumped out of the car to go look. At this point Shannon was driving up and he slowed down right on the road behind the dead cat.

I went right down and started petting it - to see if it was still alive and to try and confirm if it was Dot. It was a brown tabby, about Dots size and it was dead and had been for a few hours at least. I went to the end of the tail and felt the tip - looking for her break, but I couldn't really find it. So for a fleeting moment I felt relief that it wasn't her.

Shannon picked it up. The only injury was on the right side of the skull, by the temple where it had been hit. There was blood there. The eyes were still open, so it must have been a quick death. In the meanwhile Alex had run down to our house to see if he could find Dot to know whether it was her or not.

Shannon took the cat and walked to the house and I left Kimani and Jared next to Mary's car while I drove the truck the rest of the way home and then walked back to get the car and the two boys. I passed Shannon near our driveway and he said that he thought it was Dot, but that Alex was looking in and around the house - calling out for her, to try and find her.

I got back to the car and the boys and we hopped in, in silence and sadness as we drove home. We were in shock and I was saying, "Dot never goes this far, she's too lazy. When she's outside she always just hangs out near the house."

We got to the house and Shannon was sitting on the steps near grandmas door with the cat in his arms. I asked if they found Dot and he said no, they had not. So, we knew this had to be Dot kitty. I went and got a trash bag to put the body in, as it was way too dark to bury her since it was just around midnight. I helped Shannon get her into the bag and we put her in Mary's covered porch to keep any animals for getting at her.

Then I gave Jared a very long hug as we cried. Dot kitty is his baby. He wanted us to keep her so badly when he was only 5 years old and so she's been a part of our life for 10 years.

Eventually we all went to bed with a great sadness in our heart.

Then this morning Shannon is startled awake and says, "Cat? What the? Dot!" and I roll over and see that Dot kitty has hopped up into our bed this morning!!!! She is very alive and wanting to get some love and be fed. We pet her tons and tons talking to her and then I asked Shannon if he would take Dot kitty up to Jared's bedroom and put her on him so he can see she is okay.

So the boys are all happy and back to normal - and Dot kitty is enjoying all the extra attention!

We are going to check with some of the neighbors to see if anyone knows who this other tabby cat belongs too. We had never seen it before. We had no idea there was a Dot kitty look alike. If we can't find the owners we'll bury it ourselves - but I want to make sure that some poor family isn't missing their cat like we were last night.

Update: Alex and I went to a few different houses around our neighborhood and finally found the owners. The cats name was Pookums and the oldest son, who must have been around 18-22 drove over to our house and identified that it was their cat and took it home. We are very sad for them and Pookums.