Buckley
I was walking my daughter to daycare in her pram. I'd left the house on a bad note, mid-minor argument with not enough time to resolve it. I can't recall what our disagreement was about because it was shortly overshadowed by what happened next.
I saw an arm waving. An older woman, one hand clutching her chest. I heard her say 'help!' as she made her way towards me. I quickly popped out my earbuds out. Was she hurt? Was she having a heart-attack? Had there been an accident?I asked if she's okay, what happened.
"They just threw him out of their car" she said, as she unfurled her hand and revealed the tiny black kitten nuzzled in to her cardigan.
"Listen, I'm sorry about the way we ended our conversation earlier, and I know it's not resolved... But can we put that aside for a minute? I'm on my way home. We're okay. But we have cat."
The nonna had explained to me in a compassionate mediteranian accent how the cat was dumped on her nature strip. "I don't know what to do. I don't drive anymore. And even then, I already have two full-grown cats, I've never looked after a kitten before! And he's so little!" I heard someone tell her it's okay and that they would get him to a vet. I was surprised to realise that someone was me.
Now I had one hand clutched to my chest, kitten inside, as the other tried to navigate the pram over the curb as I crossed the street in the opposite direction I had intended to.
"Did you just say you have a cat?"
Just under two years earlier, I was waiting for an Uber at a regional airport half way across the world in Durango, Colorado, USA. I had just dropped off my rental car, worried I wouldn't have time to do it the next day before my flight. I was in a rush, the kind of rush you only experience while on a holiday, when you suddenly become very conscious of how limited your time in any one place is.
I had seen a young orange cat darting between the cars as I parked in the rental bay. I had wondered if it was a stray, or perhaps someone's pet lost in transit or wondered in from a nearby home. I saw it again now, running along the gutter and ducking underneath parked cars. I distinctly recall thinking "Someone should really do something, that cat could get hit by a car". But before I had time to let that thought run its natural course I saw a black sedan that matched the description of the one in my palm and strained to read the number plate from a distance to confirm.
I got in the Uber, confirmed my name, and saw the now familiar reaction to my unusual accent. I prepared myself for the conversation that would follow. Yes, I'm Australian. Yeah, I'm here on holiday. Yep, I knew it would be winter here. No, I don't think it's miserable, I love the snow. Grass is always greener - or in this case, whiter - on the other side.
We heard a sound, the car that had overtaken us suddenly sped up and darted off around the corner. On the road was a cat, impossibly mangled, choking for air. The Uber driver swore in equal parts confusion and disgust. I shouted at him to stop. He did.
I don't know how long we stared at the cat. I had heard the term 'injuries incompatible with life' before, but hadn't understood just what that meant until that moment. The cat was still breathing. Frantically clutching for air. It was terrified, confused, choking on itself. Neither of us knew what to do. The cat was beyond saving. I couldn't even pick it up to hold it without causing it further pain and distress, and there was no time or means to compassionately put it out of its misery. We just sat there, stunned, and watched as its eyes focused on one spot, breathing slowed and life exhausted from its eyes in one long moment.
After what felt like an eternity, we drove off in complete silence. No more questions about my funny accent.
My mum, a former vet nurse, informed me over the phone that the kitten was probably under two weeks old, judging by the fact that it wasn't walking and hadn't opened its eyes. This was quickly amended to four, as it did both soon after I spoon fed it some water and kitten food my partner had picked up from the shops on her way back from dropping our daughter off (in the car, this time, before heading off to work). He was starving, dehydrated, and exhausted. At first he slowly licked the spoon as I held it to his mouth, soon he had regained his energy and was enthusiastically lapping at it and getting it stuck in his hair. Fortunately he didn't seem injured.
I drove him to the vet in a bucket with a towell. The kitten, who mere hours prior I thought hadn't taken its first steps, sprang out and clutched on to the passenger chair as I rounded a corner. I pulled over and amended my MacGuivered pet carrier, but kept my left hand nearby whenever I wasn't changing gears for the rest of the drive.
I was the only person in the waiting room with a bucket.
The vet checked him over - He was fairly sure he was a him, but advised it can be hard to tell at this age. I asked him what happens next.
"Well, that depends. Do you want to keep him?"
A week after the cat at the airport in Durango, I was staying with friends in Minnesota. On a walk I came across a mural to a man - an unarmed man - killed by a police officer (No, not the one you're probably thinking of. Another. Theres always another).
Next to the portrait of someone's son, someone's friend, someone now gone who never got to say goodbye, was a simple statement:
Do the right thing.
I thought of the people I had wronged, and the wrongs I had witnessed in my line of work, or in my community. I thought of the times I hadn't spoken up, hadn't told someone that what they were doing was wrong, hadn't set an expectation of behaviour, or sometimes even lived up to that standard myself. I thought of how in the moment that lead to this death and this mural, all it took to avoid uncalculable pain and suffering was for one person to do the right thing.
I distinctly remember at the time thinking "Jesus, I couldn't even save a cat. What's wrong with me?" It shoudn't be so hard to do the right thing. It's so obvious in hindsight.
We didn't know if we should keep him. But it was nearly Christmas, our daughter had fallen in love with him, and we didn't know what his chances of being compassionately adopted by anyone else would be this time of year. Still learning to speak, our daughter called him 'dog dog', we had to teach her what a cat was.
We knew Cat Cat wouldn't stick. Neither would Socks, Tuxedo, or any of the other terrible clichés we could think of for a black and white kitten. We quickly settled on Buckley, named for the fortunate escaped European convict who, having taken a spear from a burial mound, was adopted by the Wadawurrung people believing he was a reincarnation of the recently deceased former owner of the spear. Buckley was fortunate enough to find himself in the right circumstances to be adopted by a compassionate family, nursed back to health and adopted in to their life and customs.
It seemed fitting.
It's been nearly a year since we adopted Buckley, and he is most definitely part of the family now. Whenever I pick up my daughter from childcare I ask her if she's excited to see Buckley, and she always says yes. She calls out for him the moment we step through the door.
Buckley doesn't quite know how to show affection, but he loves us and loves being around us. He follows us from room to room and will fret if he can't get through a door to us. Between him and our daughter, going to the bathroom is no longer a private enterprise. Buckley will sooner nibble, bite or scratch than let you pet him, but in the right circumstances, if you find him with a full stomach and in a loving mood, he will hapily snuggle up to you and let you scratch his chin, or sleep at your feet as you watch a movie or read a book.
There were times where we weren't sure if we could keep him. There was a period where he was so full of energy and didn't know what to do with it. He would play bite, pounce and scratch, which we could handle but our very young daughter definitely couldn't. And to be fair, there were times where our daughter would be the instigator of any strife between the two who we had started calling Child A and Child B. Despite sleepless nights and little spare time, we've figured out Buckley's routine, how he likes to play, and have patiently taught him (and her!) to play gently.
I think often of that mural in Minnesota. Whenever I need to make a difficult choice, whenever I see something wrong, whenever I have the opportunity to stop something or do something or intervene. Despite being half a world away, I often find myself in front of that mural. Reading those words.
Was adopting a kitten in that moment the right thing to do? Not nececcarilly. But I'm glad we did it. And I'm glad that, in that moment, I remembered to at least try and do the right thing. To at least consider what the right thing to do would be. I could have kept walking - We had work, childcare commitments, time is poor and cat food is expensive. But I had the opportunity to try and improve the outcome. To push the world around me in to a slightly nicer orbit. And I let that guide my decision-making.
Do the right thing.