The other day a crazy thing happened. The most unlikely thing, the sort of thing that if you worried about it you would be paranoid and never be able do anything. Basically a folded hammock pouring off the edge of a chair became a noose. A tiny kitten got it’s head stuck in the strings and twisted and twisted making it shorter and tighter until it’s legs could barely reach the ground. Pure horror. If you saw 12 years a slave you know. I was literally about to leave and I did a quick scan and walked towards the kitten and it didn’t back off as usual. I was surprised and then realised it was stuck and suffocating.
I picked him up and tried to get it off over his head but it was so tight from the twisting. I struggled for a long time to untwist the whole thing whilst keeping the kitten still and the rope around it’s neck from pulling harder whilst I worked on it. The kitten was literally choking and I couldn’t pull the rope over it’s tiny fragile little head. Eventually I managed. Poor thing slid off the chir and crawled under something all scared and shocked.
Kittens being kittens – not 3 minutes later he was swatting at things and generally being silly. That kitten will have a new found trust in humans now. He just had to let me work on it. HE would have died. If I had left 5 minutes earlier the owner would have come home the next day literally to a horror scene of an unimaginable nature.
This for me is scary because what are the chances? You can’t go through life worrying about the unlikely possibilities like that. I am still pretty confused by it. A friend of mine, who is a parent, made a good point. Yes, I thought it was extreme bad luck. But my friend said you could also just say it was extreme good luck, because I was there to solve it. He said that as a parent he had to let go of all these fears and possibilities. He said in his experience when things like this happen there is very often a person there to solve it quite by chance. Therefore he says to himself that if one of his kids got in a situation, that he hopes that somebody will be there to help.
You can’t worry about every piece of string because you can’t catch everything. I am a cat person and I might have not left the hammock as such with kittens around but I also might have because it wasn’t threatening. It was up and out of the way. The kitten stood up on back legs to fiddle with it and got stuck. It scares me to think if I had left 5 mins earlier. I don’t understand why. Why did this happen. I believe I am supposed to heed it as advice. Not advice to be paranoid, but advice perhaps to be more aware of that side of things. You can’t go on a plane and spend the whole flight thinking it will crash. You can’t go through life paranoid. So what? Don’t fly or use the challenge as a lesson to overcome those fears? I think it has to be the latter because the former doesn’t make sense. But, here’s the thing, I kind of felt like I was already ok wit this sort of thing.
And that’s exactly why having it happen in front of me is confusing. I don’t know how to settle it. Where to file it. How to move one from it. This was not a person. This was nature in it’s cruelest and most arbitrary form. The one thing nobody can overcome or control or beat. Nature is harsh. This time shortly coming – two years ago – Red got run over. I’ve since had a thing about June. It’s my dads birthday on 16th and he died not long ago. So June just changed from one year to the next for me – forever. After this incidence I am a little scared of June. That’s me. I know it’s not rational but it’s not mean’t to be.
The kitten is 100% fine. If anything emotionally affected. I could have kept it to myself and nobody would have ever known about it. What the hell. Why me. How do I make sure to be in the right place at the right time next time? I suppose I have to take note of how it played out.
The key factor in it was simple. Somebody called urging me to leave quickly because I was late and had to meet them. So I was basically ready and was going to up and leave because I had sorted everything before, it’s not my house. But being in a hurry stresses me. I hate it. And I know I make mistakes if I am in a hurry. I suddenly got that feeling, and I liked it there and wanted to stay anyway. So instead of acting out the feeling as I would sometime and being all stressed and sloppy I said to myself “No, wait, ok, I am leaving, focus, ok one last look around before I go”.
I could easily have not done that extra check because I checked 5 mins or less before. IT was actually the feeling of stress which forced me to react by being extra organized to counter the feeling of stress. If there wasn’t a hurry, I would have just got up and left. The stress made me look an extra time.
So here’s my conclusion as to what to ‘do’ about this.
Whenever I feel like something is not right, and that I could counter balance or change that feeling with some kind of mental exercise or action, I will do it. I’ll make an extra effort to be aware of exactly when I feel things going wrong, and if it happens, I won’t be lazy and react in a destructive way, instead I’ll make an effort to solve it constructively.
It might seem strange to go into so much detail over a moment and a couple of thoughts, but if you experience something like that you can’t escape it. Your mind just goes back and plays it over and over. You have to do something. You can’t just let it haunt you. So the obvious thing is to try and understand it in a positive and constructive way. I was there! Luckily.
How to be there and similarly resolve an event of a similar nature another time?
The one overriding good thing here is – that I was there at the exact right moment and I saw it just in time. That’s the part of it which is incredibly, if not magically good. That’s the part I want to preserve. That’s the part which motivates me forward and it’s the part which makes it possible to move on and not suffer or change for the worse because of it.
Without that good side I think it gets disturbing. Like PTSD disturbing. Pure bad things happen all over. We are lucky we don’t have to live with such things where others do. Lands far away where evil things happen and quite arbitrarily in some cases too. It’s like a hurricane. or a tornado. It’s a force of nature and humans have always taken issue with it in different ways. In the developed world it seems like the solution is physical control, nothing left to ‘chance’. In India, for me, it’s the opposite. You don’t drive carefully there. You pray to the forces that be and ask that you be spared a horrible accident, and then you drive like a nutter.
There are different attitudes that deal with this untameable force of nature. How do you surf that wave correctly. Not getting left behind but also not going too soon that it crushes under it’s weight.
How do you manage your mental state in a way that allows you to best deal with what life gives you, even when it gives you something so impossible that your mind and emotions literally cannot process the information?
I totally agree with that too, yes they do im sure. I have PTSD and its certainly a battle sometimes.
I agree things like this do in fact make you stronger within yourself. They are like Things you have to go though. I’ve had a few hard things that ive learnt to grow though and they do make you a better person for it. Without you being there that little kitten would’ve survived. Yes a situation like this certainly is very hard emotionally and physically its hard to understand the whys it might also give you the reason of what you did. Im sure the mama cat was thankful for what you did. Good on u anyway
I agree with what everything Dee said. We cant totally be there 100 percent. I think you have a deep sense like Intuition, towards the cats, and that’s a gift like a calling. Its so upsetting, and hurtful when see such horrible things happen to cats. It does my head in when i read over here in NZ where u hear cruelty done to animals breaks my heart. Its good you were able to tell someone as it helps to talk about the feelings your going though. I guess like all cat protectors we can be there for each other as im sure we understand what its like to see a defensive kitten/cat go though so much trauma.
Yes Marc it takes time to heal, but can tell just how much it hurt you as you truly deeply loved red, how still it takes time to get over, no matter if you have other cats the pain is still there. Its horrible losing a cat like that words can’t describe the pain. I agree certainly triggers makes it hard. Its like i can’t watch a certain program esp, if they are talking horrible against against animals or cats. I believe was more, than just an animal that’s exactly how i felt about Cass she was my everything. I truly believe things happen for a reason. It’s just like when Ozzie almost got run Over, and seeing him in so much pain and not breathing and panting. I know its not the same but was horrible and stressful seeing our cat in so much pain and felt panic and anxiety and worry. Anyway i think you did the best thing and its hard moving on from that point.
That is horrible Marc, but i believe u were meant to be there for that wee kitten. I’m a firm believer in things happen for a reason even though its a horrible thing to go though. As you say if you hadn’t stayed there for an etc 5 mins you would never of known. Great article. I think yes you do have that that sensing ability. I think as cat protectors, we all have that its like that intuition when we know something is not right and we follow our heart. I often get that when something feels like something is about to happen either good or bad. Everything in life is meant to test us that’s the thing ive learn t most of all. Just thank Goodness you were there and listened to your Gut feeling.