true forgiveness

have you ever experienced true forgiveness? i am so thankful to say that today, this was the result of a very, very unfortunate situation.

i was on my way to a doctors appt when it happened. i came to the bottom of a hill that is just outside of our neighborhood, passing by a farm that sits just off the road. i could see it sitting on the other side of the road, almost in the middle of the other lane, contemplating, and i got ready. i hit the brake, but i must have just gotten the corner of the pedal with my foot, b/c it slipped. right at this moment, it decided to cross, and i tried to get my foot to the brake again, but it was too late. i caught it with my front right tire. i felt the bump, and i screamed in horror. i looked back through the rear view mirror, only to see it's tail extend straight up, and then fall. i didn't know what to do. my car continued in forward motion though my mind was back with the cat. i kept going. the car two cars behind me pulled over. my mind was racing. should i stop? what would i do? i have no idea who's cat that is. it could be a stray, not belonging to anyone. i kept going.

i picked up the phone and called john, my tears were full on sobs by now. this kind of thing hits me in my core. i was once driving to work at JCrew when all of a sudden traffic came to a dead stop. as it started to crawl along again, the car in front of me darted over to the side...revealing a rabbit that had been hit and was not yet gone. i burst into tears, feeling the pain it must be in.

john tried to console me, telling me we could call the humane society or animal control and let them know what happened...there was nothing i could do, etc etc. i told him a car had stopped so something was being done. i was still on the road to my appt. we got off the phone and i knew what had to be done. i pulled over and turned around. i had to go back. i cancelled my appt just minutes before it was supposed to start...not caring whether they charged me for it or not. (they didn't.) as i drove back to the scene, i didn't know what to think, or what to expect. i just knew i needed to go. as i pulled up i saw that the car was still there, the one that had stopped. the cat had been removed from the road. i walked past where it had lain, a puddle that looked goey and slightly pink. the walk up the driveway seemed to take forever, there were two women standing in the yard and they watched me approach, saying nothing. finally i spoke.

"Hi...are you the ones that stopped?" One nodded her head. The other one just stared at me. I began crying harder now as I let them know I was the one that hit the cat. "I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry. I should have stopped." "Well, thank you for coming back" said the one that had initially said nothing. "It means more to me than you'll ever know." I began to sob and wipe my face. They saw this and broke and began to cry too and walked over to hug and comfort me....both of them. I lost it. "I'm sorry" I repeated over and over again. I told them I tried to stop but I couldn't in time. The owner told me it was a farm cat, and it was where it shouldn't have been and it happens. Then the husband came out, and she let him know who I was and what happened. "Thank you for coming back", he said. He shared some stories about the cat, and informed me that it was now joining it's sister, whom they also lost in the same manner. The wife inquired as to the whereabouts of the rest of their cats, and he pointed them out to her. As a sign of real strength, he said "As much as I hate to say it, you shouldn't.... (long pause, at which point I thought, here it comes and I got really nervous)...you shouldn't stop if it's going to cause a wreck." The lady who had stopped agreed, and said it was just inches with several cars behind me and there was nothing I could do. I asked them if there was anything I could do, and they said no. "Shit happens" the husband said. They thanked me again and told us to stop by anytime, the cat had impregnated another cat of theirs so they would have kittens soon. His legacy will live on.

The lady who had stopped walked with me to my car. She shared that she was on her way to a viewing, she works in hospice and her client had passed earlier in the week. I thanked her for stopping, and she said she knows how shocking it can be when this happens. Throughout this intense experience, none of us exchanged names. We were just complete strangers sharing raw emotions together. And then we said goodbye.

This will haunt me for a while. I drive by that farm nearly everyday, sometimes several times a day. I am driving more cautiously today, very hyper-alert. I feel good about going back, I think it gave us all some peace over the situation. They had every right to be angry, to focus on the fact that I didn't stop initially and to yell and scream...but they didn't. They chose to forgive, and to go beyond that, to comfort me when it should have been the other way around. After that I went home. I went home to my Bella, and my Sam, and my Maddie girl. I scooped Bella up into my arms and cried some more.