Goodbye, George

[mousme]

At 17:00 I decided to take the dog out for a walk to go look for Pan-Pan. I opened the front door, and George slipped between my legs and headed out for the evening. I locked the door, turned around, and watched as a car drove by and hit him.

For a second it didn't seem real. Then it all snapped into place when I saw him writhing in pain. His eye had come out of his socket, and there was blood and brain matter all over the street.

I scooped him up in my arms and put him in the back of the car, unceremoniously shoved the dog back in the house (the poor dog was so confused about why he wasn't getting his walk) and drove to the vet, which is luckily right around the corner from where I live. Unfortunately, it was still too long for George. He died during the five minutes it took for me to get there. When I picked him up to carry him inside, I could tell that the life had left his body: he was limp, and his head lolled to the side.

Needless to say, I was hysterical mess by the time I got in the vet's office. I was covered in blood and cradling a dead cat, and I think the only thing I managed to convey was "Il s'est fait frapper!" which loosely translates to "He got hit." After that I mostly continued having hysterics while the vet took George from me, and the receptionist hovered and tried to get me to sit down and have a drink of water.

It didn't take long before they confirmed what I already knew. They let me wash the blood off my hands and arms, and we took care of the paperwork and the fee to get George cremated. They gave me back his collar, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.

I came home and sobbed some more, managed to pull myself together a little bit before pdaughter and Bean got home. She was fantastic, and even went out with a bucket of water to rinse away the blood and grey matter off the street so I won't have to look at it every time I go by in the next few days.

It's been three and a half hours, and I honestly still don't know what to do with myself. I'm mostly trying to keep myself distracted, because if I think about it for too long I start replaying the accident over and over in my head.

I knew, of course, that there was a risk this would happen. I knew as soon as I started letting the cats out that they might be killed by a car or by another animal or by any other means. I never imagined it happening in a way that was quite this traumatic, though.

Comments

[toughlovemuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, Phnee. I don't have words for how sorry I am.

All our love. All the hugs.