Keeping Secret

Driving to the gym for my morning workout, I happened upon the remains of a house cat left dead in the road.   Like so many other drivers ahead of me, I swerved to avoid driving over it. 

    It struck me how similar in size and coloring it looked to be like my own cat, Obediah.  So I felt a pang of empathy for whoever had nurtured a kitten into what was now a mangled carcass.  As I passed the scene, as well as onward through an immediate bend in this country road, an inner voice resolved to claim that cat and bury it when I returned.  It felt right.

   The thought of the cat dissolved into my mental mist of a host of other issues churning while I drove.  After my work out, I am visited by legions of needs to be accomplished in the rest of my day.  So when I drove past the cat I was startled to notice it was still there.  I just as soon remembered my earlier pledge; I sat on the horns of dilemma.  Should I just continue on my way thinking I was being sentimentally impractical to my first impression?  I continued to chew on that idea, reasoning that since no one knew of my private thoughts, then who could indict me for not following through?  At the next stop sign I impulsively turned into a drive then retraced my route to the dead cat. 

   Fortunately I had a hefty lawn bag in the trunk of the car.  Other drivers slowed to avoid my car with the emergency flashers on.  I could see them rolling down windows to get a better look at what the delay was all about?  They would see it was just a middle aged man picking up a dead cat; most likely a family pet. 

   After bagging the corpse I didn't know what to do with it.  Should I just leave it by the shoulder of the road? Was that service enough?  I walked towards the side of the abandoned house next to where I found the cat considering what time would do to the body; how that mental image offended me.  So I turned around, put him in the trunk of my car, then headed home pondering where I'd bury him.  I say him, but I had no idea what gender it was, nor will I indulge on the graphic depiction of the injuries that would prevent my checking.  Suffice to say it was boldly obvious the cat endured a violent end.

     On the far side of a storm stream bed that crosses my property, is a tree. I dubbed it earlier the Obediah tree.  I named it that a while back, when he was an outside cat.  He would take a fantasy to climbing up into that tree and look down at me while I labored to clear out the brambles in that section of the yard.    I buried the no named cat under that very tree.  As I finished preparing the hole I wondered on the topic of 'depth of the grave' but dismissed it as unnecessary.  I poured the cat out of the bag and he landed as if he were curled and sleeping.  How ironic and somehow, perfect.

  I realized he was nowhere near the same color as my boy, but it still struck me that someone was going to be missing his mewing. 

   I had a disagreement recently about privacy being construed as secrets.  My contention remains that secrets harbor some degree of harm in them, where privacy is a personal value for oneself, where no intent to deceive is present. But that's my interpretation. I think this private moment would best be shared for the airing out of my personal grief over an unknown pet; an object of affection.  A pet that gifted me to do what I felt was the decent thing, even if the event was very private...it is now no longer a secret.