Life and Death

Aiden's B-Day We have to reserve soon. Plus Black Cat is dead saw it on the road ran over.

This was the subject line in the email I got from Rad at work the other day. I'd already known the cat was dead as I'd passed the van over it on the way to kindergarten, realizing with horror as it went under that it wasn't a piece of black tire or trash in the middle of the road. It was "my friend".

The black cat is Aiden's "friend". He has no idea he's dead. And today as he played outside with his watergun (under strict orders to ONLY spray plants) he said to me with a gleeful look, "When I see my friend the cat I'm gonna spray him!" I just smiled and hoped that he would soon forget about our little adopted stray. He adopted us, really. He always knew when we were outside playing or having a cookout. Sometimes, we'd be sitting around inside on a cold, rainy or snowy day, and his little black head would pop up in the window, meowing and rubbing against the glass for us to come out. Or for us to let him in. He was sneaky. I don't know how many times we found that cat inside the house, not knowing how he'd gotten in or when. We didn't even feed him or anything. He really just seemed to genuinely enjoy our company. It was sweet :) I was really sad when I realized that he was lying sad and dead there on the road. How sad Aiden would be and I'm just not ready to deal with that kind of life lesson right before his birthday. We'll just pretend that he decided to go off on an adventure and see new places--Reichenbach is quite a sleepy little town anyway. Here's to My Friend and his new adventure...Thanks for the company and for adopting Aiden, becoming a good friend.