Today I would like to tell a story. This is something that happened to me two years ago, but it is still fresh in my mind today and I still cringe about it.
Somewhere near the endish of my year in Israel, we came back from a tiyul and I saw a couple of my friends and a madricha crowded around a certain part of the Rova. Curious, I made my way over to see what the commotion was.
It was a kitten. But not just any kitten. It was a little baby kitten, not much bigger than both my fists put together (and I have small fists. Well, comparatively, anyway, since I have small hands). It was pure, pure white with a little pink nose and little pink eyelids that clearly had just recently opened for the first time to reveal bright black eyes.
"Are you sure we should be touching it?" I asked my friends who were petting it and smoothing its fur.
"Oh, yes, it's fine," I was told. "This kitty's too young to be diseased yet. It's probably only just opened its eyes!"
Finally, I got my turn to pet it. I lifted it up and it nestled against my shirt. As I stroked it, it purred with contentment and I knew then that I just had to keep this baby kitten. How could I leave it out in the wild, to brave the streets of the Rova, to survive among all the bigger, scarier, meaner Rova strays? It was precious. It was pure. And, God, it was only a baby! Where was its mother? I asked if anyone had seen her but no one had. I asked if we could save it and bring it to a vet, but the madricha who was with us said we can't. We would have to leave it.
Sadly, I started to put the kitten back down, but when it realized what I was about to do, it dug its little claws into my shirt and started mewing desperately. It looked terrified. I panicked a little, because its claws were surprisingly long for a baby kitten and I suddenly got this image of it climbing up my face (since it was progressively climbing up my shirt towards my shoulder) and clawing my eyes out. Of course, that was ridiculous, but I suddenly didn't want it in my shirt anymore. Not if we couldn't keep it. I finally got it off me and placed it gently back down. There was an adult cat nearby, so my friends and I decided to try and have that cat adopt our kitten. The poor kitten would follow our every move carefully with its eyes, so we used this to our advantage and when we slowly started walking towards the adult cat, it followed. But the adult cat backed away from the kitten. We had tainted it. We had touched it, so now it had our smell. Human smell. We had, in a way, doomed the kitten to a lonely existence. That's when it really became clear to me that it probably wouldn't survive.
The madricha with us finally said it was time to go. We started walking back to the dorms with saddened hearts. Each of us felt bad for the kitten. As we walked, I could hear it mewing with fear behind us. It wanted us back. It wanted me back. Me, who had separated its claws from my shirt, who had put it down to be left, abandoned. I took a deep breath and made myself put one foot in front of the other. One foot, then the other, then the first again. Walk. Just walk. Don't look back.
Eventually, we were back in the dorms. The kitten was left. It was over. We all talked about how sad it was, how bad we felt for the poor motherless kitten. I don't know how many of them still think about it occasionally, but I know I do. I was just thinking about it the other day, I'm not sure why, but I can still hear it mewing pitifully after us. I still cringe about how we abandoned it there. I should have stood up for it. I shouldn't have listened to authority. Authority told us to leave it, to sentence it to a horrible life, maybe even death out there. Who knows how long it survived after that?
So I decided that when I finally get a place of my own, I want to get a little kitten just like that one from a shelter, so that at least I can save one kitten, even if I couldn't save that one.
Of course, I also really want a dog, but that's another story.
1 comment:
That's so sad. :( I hope it made it, somehow.
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