So Much Pain. So Much Guilt. So Much Anger At Myself., I just can't believe my Iggy was hit by a car so close to home. Options

[MissingMyLittleI...]

Hi everyone. I think this site might just save my life, or at least my sanity. Thank you so much for all being here and being such a wonderful support group. I have spent hours reading all your stories... and crying and crying and crying, for all of you, for me, for my little cat Iggy who was struck dead by a car Monday night just two houses up the street from our house. I am crying so much, the screen keeps blurring and I have to keep stopping... oh, this pain is unbelievable.

I know (from reading your posts) that this intense grieving I am going through is normal and that I will be able to bear the pain a little more every day. I can't imagine it ever being gone, though, and I will tell you why: I made a STUPID decision to let my two cats, Iggy and Pete, be indoor-outdoor guys. I guess it's partially because my last cat, Gizmo, who died in August 2006 was so good at being outdoors ad never getting himself in trouble. I have always been the person who thought the rescue/adoption agencies and shelters were seriously meddling with pet ownership when they said "Indoors Only or No Adoption". I chose to get Pete and Iggy from two different rescues that gave me the freedom to decide to let them "have fun" outside. I always thought (I am a biologist) that cats needed to have that freedom to be happy. The problem is-- I now understand, oh too well-- that every time they went out through their cat door, I was playing kitty roulette and they might not come back alive. Oh, this is killing me... (I just can't stop the tears: I am dehydrated so much from crying that my lips are chapped.)

Well, now I know. Poor Pete thinks he is being tortured, I'm sure, but we blocked access to the cat door and he has been inside since Tuesday, when we found out Iggy had been killed.

I need to get this story out of me again and again, it seems. I have called almost all my friends already and told them all, but I feel compelled to share it here too. This is long, long, long... but I hope you will read it.

On Monday night, I heard a bird really screeching and went around the side of the house to see what was going on, and--lo and behold!-- here comes Iggy, carefully climbing up the porch steps with a Mockingbird (!!!) in his mouth. Well, I have both my cats wear bells on their collars to prevent them from being able to catch birds, but he had caught his first one anyway, and at night no less. I held him under my left arm and used my right hand to push on the sides of his jaw so he would release the bird. This worked, and the bird flew away (hopefully without a fatal injury), and then I gave Iggy a big hug and told him he was a good boy and gave him his favorite treats (Greenies).

He happily ate them and then went back out his cat door, even though the front door was wide open (classic Iggy). That was the last time we saw him alive. [I feel like dying every time I think of this: all we had to do was hang on to him in the house, call it a night, and he would still be here with me. But I was busy working on grading homework and exams and had no idea this was a CRITICAL MOMENT for us both. I kept working for a while and then decided I wanted to go for a walk to get some chocolate at a store a few blocks up the street. My boyfriend Sean and I walked up the street-- on the sidewalk, which I never choose! I always walk in the street and would have seen him if he had already been hit (though we didn't hear an impact... and now that I am making an attempt to think more clearly about all this, I think we would have). Then, on the way back, we walked down the middle of the street but got forced on to the sidewalk as a car passed (Was that *the* car? Again, I don't think so any more since we didn't hear an impact. Also, I don't think that car was going fast enough to do what was done to my poor little man...)

Then, we came inside, sat on the couch, turned on a stupid movie (13 going on 30, or the other way around... I never want to see it again, ever), ate some chocolate and decided to turn in around 1am. At that point, we called for Iggy and Sean shook the catfood bag and the treat bag (this usually worked, but not always... so we were not worried when he didn't come in), and then we GAVE UP and went to bed. This is the part that really kills me. He might have already been hit, but I don't think so (same rationale as before). I think if I had just walked up the street a few houses and called him, he would have come to bed with me and, again, he would still be alive and here with me now. I don't know why I didn't go look for him. I feel like I always went and looked for him, but I had actually slacked off lately. I guess my mindset was that he had been doing this outside thing just fine for a long time... no, I take this back. I didn't even have a mindset. I guess I thought he was probably miffed that I had taken his bird away from him. It was more like "oh well, he'll come in when he feels like it."

Or he'll get hit by a car and I will never see him alive again. Oh god. I never even considered the danger he was in EVERY time he went outside. Another CRITICAL MOMENT had come and gone, and I had missed it.

I had also drunk some linden tea because I've been having trouble sleeping lately, and the awful thing is that while I generally take a long time to fall asleep and then sleep lightly (so I would have heard an impact... maybe... it was just a couple houses up where it happened), I fell asleep fast that night and woke up telling my boyfriend that I had had the best sleep I had had in forever...while my little cat was hit by a car. How horrible and ironic.

In the morning, I yelled for Iggy, expecting him to be in the tree he'd been sleeping in lately (another classic Iggy maneuver) and shook his treats and his food, but he was already gone by the time I yelled for him. Not just dead. Gone.

I went to teach my biology class and when I got out of class, I got a text message from Sean that said "call me right away." I knew right then that something was horribly wrong, but I pushed the idea that it could be Iggy down in my mind. But it was Iggy. Sean told me as soon as I walked in the door: Iggy was hit by a car and he didn't make it and then something like "I'm sorry" or maybe "I'm serious". All I could say was "Oh, no." And then "Where is he?"

It turns out our neighbor had found Iggy dead on the sidewalk in front of his neighbor's door, so he called his maintenance man to come and dispose of the body. This still makes no sense to me, because when Sean came home for lunch, he came right over-- smiling and jovial: what the hell?-- and asked if we had a little gray cat with a blue collar. Sean said yes and then the maintenance guy who was sitting in his truck right there in front of our house told him that Iggy had been hit by a car and he had taken him to the shelter. But he HAD NOT. He had taken him to a composting dumpster. Oh my god. The thought that my poor Iggy was not only dead, but in a dumpster with god-knows-what was absolutely devastating. It took us some sleuthing to figure this all out-- valuable time wasted-- so that, by the time we all (four of us) met at the dumpster, it had been compacted and we could not get Iggy out.

I let the maintenance man have it. (This is the one thing I did in that 24 hour period that I am proud of.) I told him he had no respect for LIFE, animal or human. I told him he KNEW that cat was someone's pet-- in fact, the neighbor suspected it was OUR pet-- and yet, he dumped it in a dumpster that he knew it would be impossible to get it back out of. I went on and on... I don't remember it all. And I did it without tears.

Then, I walked over to the dumpster and stared into it, realizing I was not going to get my Iggy out of that reeking, nightmarish mess. I made a sound that I have never made before, then, and it just kept coming out of me. It was like an animal moan, straight up from my lungs. I had to squat down on the ground to keep from collapsing. I cried so hard, I couldn't see anything. The neighbor realized they had done the wrong thing and offered to pay (oh, that's a classic: "I don't want to get my hands dirty, but if you can find someone to do the dirty work, I will foot the bill." What a gesture. Ugh.) The maintenance man, however, just kept this asinine smirk-ish look on his face through the whole ordeal.

Sean brought me home and I called Waste Mgmt, who told me there was no way I could get into that dumpster. Sean called the ASPCA to see if there were laws prohibiting dumping animals like Iggy had been dumped. [No. Just one Florida law that says if you do put an animal in a dumpster (my god!), it has to be packaged in a certain way.] We sat on the couch, heartbroken. I talked to lots of friends I hadn't talked to in a long time that night. They told me it was probably better for me to NOT see Iggy in such awful condition, but I knew I needed to get him out of that dumpster.

No sleep Tuesday night, and then our other cat Pete was up crying at the window and then at us at 5am. I found myself thinking I absolutely HAD TO go to the dumpster, right then. Sean begged me not to do this to myself. I cried myself back into quasi-sleep, but then had to go teach again. That's when I snapped out of my stupor: I stopped at the landfill on my way home from class and asked them if I could be called when the dumpster was brought in and emptied. The woman I talked to said they probably couldn't do that, but I should call the # I had already called the day before (and gotten no for an answer). As an afterthought, she said I should ask for the supervisor of the landfill: that was the first part of the key to resolving this, maybe.

I called and left a message for him, by way of a customer service person who spent maybe 15 minutes on the phone with me, getting down all the details I wanted to tell him. She said they couldn't put me through to him, but she would email him and he might give me a call back. Might.

While I was talking to her, I drove to the dumpster. It wasn't rational, but I had to do it. When I got there, the maintenance man was there. I had thought I might try strangling him if I ever saw him again, but this strange calm came over me and I walked right up to him and said I had a few questions I needed to ask him. His demeanor was different this time around. He answered my questions (where *exactly* did they find him? what *exactly* did the bag look like that he was in... in case Waste Mgmt let me look for him the next day when the dumpster would be emptied? and finally, when he picked him up, was he SURE he was really gone?) and then, incredibly, apologized and said he had felt awful since the day before.

I drove home and went to the spot where they found my Iggy. Nothing. Then, as I was getting really upset, thinking he must not have had major injuries... and maybe he had suffered all night while I slept... and maybe I could have saved him... I looked another couple of feet to my right and saw a pool of dried blood. That might sound awful, and it was, but it also told me he probably died instantly and did not suffer. I fairly ran back to my house and crumpled up on the couch and made that awful noise again.

Then the phone rang-- the guy from Waste Mgmt!!-- and he said they would probably pick up the dumpster around 7 the next morning (today; Thursday). As soon as he gave me this information, I knew he was saying YES. I could go and find my baby! I broke down completely and thanked him over and over. He said he would call in the morning and I could meet him at the landfill, which he did at 6:45 this morning.

Sean and I were as prepared as we could be to go and dig through an awful pile of trash to find Iggy (the bag was black with yellow ties-- thank god for the yellow ties!). But, after we walked up to meet the Waste Mgmt guy and shook his hand, he reached down and picked up a white box and simply said "Here he is." They had already gone through the dumpster and found him for us! I couldn't believe how kind these men were for doing this very nasty work for some woman they had never met, and for a cat that was already dead. So unbelievably kind. My heart aches (in a good way) when I think about their kindness and sympathy and how proud the older guy who had actually found Iggy looked. They had even put him in a clear plastic bag so I could see through the bag that it was him. And they had made sure to include his little blue collar. My god.

On the way home, I decided I had to bathe my little man, to honor him, and to really examine his injuries (I was a vet tech long ago) to determine whether he had died quickly or slowly. Sean begged me not to do this to myself, but again, I knew I needed to. It was horrible for Sean, but it was such sweet sorrow for me: I could touch my Iggy one last time, I could do the right thing with his body, I could find out--for sure-- that his injuries were so massive that death must have been instantaneous (thank god). Sean and I then placed a whole bunch of pictures (of me and Iggy, though there are none of me with Iggy-- none! I am heartbroken at this and reassessing how I live my life, and what I put time and effort and thought into, instead of taking stuff like this for granted...), toys, treats, a leaf from the avocado tree he'd been sleeping in lately, and a single feather from his mockingbird (found it right next to the front door at the last second before I took him to the vet!). I am so glad I did what I felt was right this morning, but I was a wreck afterward anyway.

I decided he should be cremated, not buried in a town that hasn't felt like home since I got here a year ago and that I can never forgive for taking my little cat's life (I know that must be irrational,but it's how I feel), so I called a friend to come with me to the vet's office to drop him off. I will have his ashes on December 17th, but I know I won't be healing any time soon. The grief and guilt and sadness comes over me in wave after wave, with no notice. I am still in total denial that my sweet little man is dead, and the idea that I could have saved him will haunt me for the rest of my life.

If you have read this whole saga (I guess this is a catharsis), thank you so much for doing me and my cat such an honor with your time. I look forward to your posts and I will cherish and respond to every one. Thank you again for being here to save me from drowning in pain and despair. --Sherri

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[Flossie's Mom]

Sherri,

I've been where you are right now. Many, many times. I lost several cats from letting them be outside. Once I moved to a busy bigger city I had to make the ones I had then stay inside. I hated to do that but they were grown and not at all street wise so I couldn't take that chance.

I think over the years I've lost pets every way imaginable. None have been easy. All hit me differently. Older pets, younger pets, hit by a car, killed by another dog, cancer, old age, you name it. The two that have been the most difficult were a cat with cancer that I promised I would not let her suffer, delayed putting her to sleep so she DID have a difficult passing on my lap 1 block from the vets office. Then my recent beloved companion of over 17 years who I nursed through several life threatning issues from time to time over 14 years.

The cat that I now have was to be strickly indoor. While at a 160 acre farmstead this summer, he BEGGED to go out. So I let him, worrying that a hawk would come along and grab him since he is light colored. He stuck close but seemed to have the natural instinct to head for the trees & run while in the open most of the time. I made sure he came in before dark & not out till daylight. He began as a kitten on a leash so while traveling back to our home I took him out a couple of times on leash. He snuck out at our sons house but I had always made it a point to not chase him when I wanted him to come to me and then shove him inside. I began his outdoor adventures by going out to call for him & when he came running, I'd pick him up, pet him for a short time & put him down so it would not make him want to avoid me if I needed him to come. He snuck out twice since being home.....NOT a place he will be allowed out........ and since he did not have the "flight" instinct I was able to just walk up to him & get him inside.

Cats and dogs alike love to be outside and free to explore and I hate also to have to keep them contained inside or on a leash. So I know your struggle. Do not beat yourself up..... easy to say I know. Be comforted that it appears Iggy did not suffer. One of my cats that was hit struggled with bladder & bowel control till I finally had to put him to sleep. We think it was a car that injured him and he was fine except for that & he could not hold his tail up. No marks on him at all.

Maybe Iggy's purpose in your life was for this to happen for whatever reason yet unknown. Maybe to protect Pete, maybe to bring the things you mentioned to the front of your mind. In any event, remember how he enriched your life while he was here... and will continue to enrich your life through what ever evolves as a result of his very unfortunate and much too soon passing.

I admire your dilligance in seeing to it that you got him out of that dumpster. He knows how you fought to get him so you could have his ashes forever. He knows how you love him and will continue to forever remember his love for you. Try to think of all the cute, funny and loving things about him. I know, for a long time those things will cause the tears to come. But it does help in the long term. Someday the tears will just be gentle tears of love and remembrance rather than the gut wrenching dispair that you now feel.

Hugs to you & Iggy......... Ginger

[MissingMyLittleI...]

Oh Ginger, thank you so much for all your kind words and for the time you took to respond to me. I am having a really terrible day today and I just checked back in, hoping against hope that someone else would have some words of wisdom and condolence for me. Thank you for being there! I really appreciate what you said about intending to keep your cat indoors, but then they just beg to go out. I am really struggling with this. I just patched up every possible escape route in our fenced-in back deck and trimmed Pete's claws so he can't climb the fence (thank goodness he is such a fat boy... Iggy was a born fence-climber, skinny and lanky and agile), and have had the back door open for him for the past few hours. He was just miserable having all the doors closed to him, and while I am not planning to ever let him "out out" again through the front, I am so miserable myself today that Pete's crying was really killing me and I wanted to offer him a compromise. Now, in true cat fashion, he is happily asleep on the couch... (thank goodness).

I have turned a new corner in my grieving, just since this morning. I am certain that when I moved to Key West and started ****** my boyfriend (who is seriously allergic to cats), I pushed Iggy to become more independent. I didn't allow him to sleep with us at night (because of the allergy/asthma issue) and when he came crying by the window in the morning, I was just frustrated with him (so awful... so so awful) that he couldn't just sleep by himself a little longer.

Before the Key West / new boyfriend stage, Iggy had literally slept on my pillow every night. He would never have stayed out late, like he did the night he was killed, because he wanted to sleep with me. I don't know how I'm going to get past this horrible guilt-- I think of myself as a fantastic pet owner who goes above and beyond the call of duty for my cats, and yet I pushed Iggy away, when he was in a new place and really must have needed me more than ever before. I am so sure that my behavior last year encouraged him to become more independent, and roam outside more, and he almost never slept in bed with me any more. I feel like the universe gave me this incredible, and incredibly rare, little gift of a cat... and this is how I treated that special relationship: I made it play second-fiddle to a human relationship. I am really in anguish over this, and mostly because I HADN"T EVEN THOUGHT OF IT UNTIL AFTER HE DIED. Oh, my poor little cat. Iggy-- I am so sorry, sweet little man...so so sorry...

If anyone else has dealt with something like this, I would really appreciate hearing how you dealt with it. I guess what I feel is that I emotionally (partially) abandoned him, and that ultimately, that led to his increasing independence, and that led to his death. I feel like I failed him.

[Jon730]

If anyone else has dealt with something like this, I would really appreciate hearing how you dealt with it. I guess what I feel is that I emotionally (partially) abandoned him, and that ultimately, that led to his increasing independence, and that led to his death. I feel like I failed him.

I had to wait a couple of pages before answering because of the personal horror I felt at the story. As you probably know, I have an Iggy (Ignatius The Great) also, so thoughts of "What would I do if.." had to be managed before I could type.

In retrospect, I could have been more attentive to many of my past friends. Since, as I frequenly rabbit about, the only absolute unconditional love we are really going to experience in Real Life only comes from a cat or dog, in recent years for me, people come second. There are ..what..8 *10^9 people on Earth? You can call or email many of them. I just find less and less special about humans year after year. ONE dog bit me ONCE when I was a paperboy. ONE cat I met ONCE did not like me. If the oceans were ink and the skies were paper I could not list the disagreeable humans I have encountered.

People who do not love animals or understand that love can simply get out of my life, because the quality of devotion I will exchange with an animal is more sincere than any I will experience with a human.
Consider this, as a biologist: What other species TORTURES?
Drive a mile in traffic, read a History Book, or watch any random hour of TV, and decide if you would want 99% of what you see of humanity in your home.

(Just the other day I was thinking of certain relatives, and asked my lawyer if she thought I could adopt Iggy as a son. I have not gotten an answer, and suspect she is concerned for my sanity. She is probably digging up that Hobbs&Warren "Petition for Committment Form..) But I meant it.

In your siituation, all I can say is "Iggy was there first".
But, then, as you can tell, forty years of Corporate Life has made me misanthropic, so my absolutes are certainly a "Your milage may vary" kind of thing!

Your story of course made me think of the dilemma we all have about "Inside or Outside". We know they love the outdoors. They were designed to live there.
Fortunately or not, this decision has been lifted from me by the presence of coyotes here, and all the sad "Missing Cat" posters on telephone poles.
I don't have to face it because it is not an option. In another place, he surely would love a yard to play and hunt in.

[MissingMyLittleI...]

Jon, thank you so much for your post. I too am a big misanthrope-- more than usual after my poor little Iggy was dumped in a dumpster. I have actually been thinking a lot about this in the past few days, and I think my misanthropy should have prevented me from ever thinking the world outside the house-- the world I have no control over!-- was safe. I am really really heartbroken over this and am looking for ways to enclose a space for my other cat Pete so he can still experience the outdoors without being in danger.

I took a look at your profile and all the pics of your Iggy: he is adorable! It touched me so much to hear that he chose you just like my Iggy chose me... you are very lucky. I think I am going to end up getting another kitty in the near future. I just have too much love to give, and I want to give that to another little rescue kitty who needs a mom!

[Jon730]

I took a look at your profile and all the pics of your Iggy: he is adorable! It touched me so much to hear that he chose you just like my Iggy chose me... you are very lucky. I think I am going to end up getting another kitty in the near future. I just have too much love to give, and I want to give that to another little rescue kitty who needs a mom!

At first I fet it would be heartless to "replace" my Catwife, "Mrs. Goodcat". But it has been established and settled that cannot happen. It is carved in stone and established on the seas and founded on the Floods, etc.

Then I began to realize that I simply had a Love Surplus that had nowhere to go. And the August before I lost Miles, I had lost a rare and special human friendship. I had turned into a recluse.

All I can say in summary is that Iggy is a SPOILED and intensely loved little* cat, and an extremely happy one. (Obnoxiously happy- exuberant. He is my lifeline and my Court Jester. Yesterday he was playing "Peekaboo" over the edge of the bathtub when I was taking a bath. And he FELL IN by mistake. You get the picture.) So, no matter how sad I am/was/were/will be about the missing human friendship, or my "marriage" with Miles, Iggy will not stand by and let me bleed. He has ADD, anyway.

You need a loving clown. Pete needs a best friend. When you are ready, or when Fate decides, you will meet one, or one will just simply show up and barge into your life, disrupt it, drive you crazy, and make you laugh. When the time is right.

As I say to people once in a while, a big value of this forum is not only the understanding we get from others, but also the chance to compare a Loss Thread with a New Beginnings thread.

Compare the Miles story with the Iggy Funnies, and the moods of the writing shows up. It shows that happiness can lurk in the Future, even as we fester in despair and desolation.

* (I will always think of him as I met him when he picked me. Even though I grunt when I pick him up now.)