Burial

[mundens]

This morning I took advantage of staying at home to take a US phone call that would otherwise have coincided with pooka training to bury Shady.

She died when it was already dark outside on Sunday, and I didn't get home till after dark on Monday, and I didn't want to leave her in the garage until the weekend.

So I went down the garden with a shovel and dug a grave. I dug it about three feet, just in the the clay-layer, after which it would have been hard to continue, but even that was much easier than i had expected. The ground was soft.

Then I searched for something to bury her in. In the end I settled on wrapping her cold, stiff, body in some plain white linen. I carried her down to the grave, and as I exited the garage. the sun came out.

I slow marched down the drive in the sunshine, with the little linen bundle in my arms, and placed her in the hole in the ground.There was no-one to hear any words, so I stood and thought about her for a bit, and then sprinkled some earth. Then came the hard part, covering her up.I didn't want to just shovel earth in on top of her so I slowly placed the earth on until she was well covered, and I could start shovelling properly. But finally it was all done and I replaced the sods on top of the grave.

Then I wanted to mark the grave. I found a piece of white painted off cut, and went to my painting bench to paint the name Shady in Chaos Black on the white. But when I started to paint the top curve of the 'S' it reminded me of her head, and I found myself painting two ears, and then I continued on to paint a complete basic black on white representation of my faithful cat. Then I wrote Shady underneath and hammered the wood in at the the head of the grave.

No idea if it will last at all, it was just something I felt I had to do at the time.

Comments

[eyes-of-winter.livejournal.com]

if you need anything sing out.

I mean it.

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Thanks man, but I'm OK.

I was recording this for my own rememberance more than anything else.

[giffydoll.livejournal.com]

That is really cool.

[yeldarb-smaillw.livejournal.com]

I undertook a similar ritual burial when it was time, recently, for our old ginger cat 'Nitro' to pass away. It always seems right to give a faithful pet respect and dignity when they leave us.

[rivet.livejournal.com]

::hugs::