On Friday, in my attempts to put into practice the procedure I was writing for a blog article, I pulled out my very old mac to try it out. It needed space cleared up–which I remembered was the reason, I’d abandoned the thing.
In my trials to free up space, I double-checked sets of pictures & video prior to deleting them. I actually did really well at not getting caught up in the memories knowing I had a lot of work to do still. There was one, however, that I couldn’t pass up watching: the video that, I believe, captured the moment in which I fell in love with my husband.
He’s always told me that he fell in love with me when I brought the kittens home.
Back then, I was frequently fostering strays & homeless pets, and I’d recently taken in a momma & her six kittens. A few days after bringing them home, we got a call about a lonely kitten who was the only survivor of an event that took the lives of his momma & all his littermates. They asked me if I could pick him up and try to get the momma that I had to adopt him and allow him to nurse.
I sped over to the petsmart they were at to pick up this adorable 4 week old orange tabby cat who had big eyes and the squeakiest little meow.
When I got him home, we followed their advice, and I video’d Keith rubbing two tiny little kittens together. He looked at me with a smirk, and said, “Do you wanna go get another one? I think this one’s used up.” It was endearing, and finding that video when I did and having shared it with Keith on Monday, was one of those coincidental ironies that life likes to throw at you.
Last night after working, I went outside to keep Keith company as he was digging up the garden he wants to plant. Tails got out and tried to go too far, so I went to take her inside. As I let her in, I saw Cheddar hanging out in the kitchen. I said, “Hi Cheddar-bug”, as this was my pet name for my favorite feline pet. I don’t recall if he came out then.
At about 2am, Keith & I both awoke to Tails whimpering & barking and getting excited. We heard some weird sounds, but didn’t really think too much of it.
We got up this morning, and when i took the boys to school, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a weird pile in the grass of the front yard. Rex was talking & distracting me, so I didn’t really pay attention. When I got back, I saw it again out of corner of my eye, and even thought that it was a weird place to put leaves for pick up as well as that they were a weird color, but I was focused on memorizing my 12 word phrase for my crypto wallet and saw Keith driving down the driveway wondering if we were both going to fit. I made it past him and waved good-bye to him. I pulled into the driveway, and shut the garage door. I got out of the car, and then something stopped the garage from shutting.
It startled me, but I quickly realized it was Keith. Then I saw him, and he was not okay. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“No. It’s Cheddar. Cheddar’s dead.”
“What? Did you hit him?” I also thought to myself, “Did I hit him?”, because I thought I’d felt a bump while I was backing in.
“No, he’s in the grass.”
“Oh….”, I thought and made a bee-line for that pile I’d seen earlier despite Keith’s protests for me to not go see him.
Sure enough, that pile I’d failed to notice in detail was Cheddar. It wasn’t a pretty picture. While his body was intact, it had some pretty gruesome lacerations around his abdomen, and it was pretty clear simply by the way he was lying on the ground that his spine was was broken and possibly even his neck. I touched his soft fur and shuddered when I felt that his body was already cold and stiff, realizing that this probably happened pretty early in the night.
Before going inside, I pulled out my phone to study the ring footage. There he was at 11:35PM at the front door, just sitting there and then finally walked around the corner. Keith and I were packing up to go in at about that time. Then at exactly 2AM, some strange blonde dog makes his way up to the door bell sniffing around & panting. It’s not enough for a conviction, but it is some pretty incriminating evidence.
There are a couple more clips of instants where it looks like something might have been running or walking by, but the camera failed to see those as motion and so did not record them. Perhaps that’s for the best…
Cheddar-bug was a good cat. His squeaky meow never faded, so when he needed something, he would sing to you with it and practically shatter the panes in the house. He loved to give massages and cuddle, and he loved goldfish crackers & shrimp.
He was a good cat. Everything’s better with Cheddar.