Weekly Contest Photo. Love . Remembering ‘Stray’.

The sleeping child is my grandson, now 10 years old and going strong. The cat was my beloved stray. The cat is the subject of my first post on the subject of ‘Love’. You’d think I would start with my family, but this is the first photograph I came across and it said ‘pick me’, so I did. (LOL)

Stray showed up on my doorstep one day.  I fell in love at ‘meow’.

I’ve had a lot of cats in my lifetime, but this cat was like a soul mate.  He was such a true gentleman.  Stray definitely had a little piece of my heart, so I begin this week with honoring him.  Love, sometimes being a double-edged sword, turns to heartbreak as was the case the day my dear, sweet Stray died.  Our street was not particularly busy, and Stray usually stayed in our yard but I still worried that one day he would get hit.  The day it happened (Oct. 1, 2006) , standing at the window, I saw the car hit him.  I rushed outside and found him hiding under the front hedge, clinging to life.  I helplessly watched as the life faded from his eyes and his body went limp.  It took fifteen (+/-) grueling  minutes for him to die and there was nothing I could do but hold him and cry.  There was no use in calling a vet as it was obviously that he’d been crushed.  He labored to breath and blood oozed from his mouth.   I cried for days thereafter.  Finally one day, my youngest son pointed out to me that some animals never experience love at all in their entire lives.  Some animals are abused, neglected, or simply raised for slaughter.  Stray had been loved.  And even if we did only have a mere five years together, it was a bond of joy and now bittersweet  memories for me.   So today as I ponder the subject of ‘love’, I am thinking of Stray, wishing I’d brought him in the house that day.   Maybe I should have waited for ‘regret’ to be the theme of the week to post this entry.