![](\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/07\/kitten.jpg\")
When I reached it it was breathing. I knelt down and knew.<\/p>\nOne of the kittens was hit by a car this morning.<\/p>\n
I was sitting on the porch eating breakfast when it happened. After the hit the kitten ran into a nearby flower bed and collapsed. When I reached it it was breathing. I knelt down and knew.<\/p>\n
I picked up the kitten, and by the time I reached the porch it was dead.<\/p>\n
I laid it on the porch shelves, went inside, found a shoebox. I laid the kitten inside the box, closed the lid, went back into the house, fixed another pot of coffee.<\/p>\n
An hour later I gathered up some old tee-shirts to line the box. It wasn’t until I stepped out onto the porch, tee-shirts in hand, that what had happened hit me and I started to cry. I opened up the box, laid down two of the tee-shirts, placed the kitten on them, placed a cat toy in its paws, and then covered the kitten with two more shirts. I closed the lid, placed the shoebox back on the porch shelves, found the shovel, and went out into the backyard.<\/p>\n
There are some nice trees in the backyard. There’s a spot at the base of one of the trees where the sun strikes in the morning and spends the afternoon in shade. It was the right spot.<\/p>\n
The hole dug I went back to the porch, placed the shoebox gently in the hole, covered it over with the dirt, and tamped it down.<\/p>\n
I haven’t buried a pet in nearly four years, not since Guinevere, my polydactyl cat, died suddenly. It never gets easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the kittens was hit by a car this morning. I was sitting on the porch eating breakfast when it happened. After the hit the kitten ran into a nearby flower bed and collapsed. When I reached it it was breathing. I knelt down and knew. I picked up the kitten, and by the timeContinue reading “On Burying a Pet”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[409],"tags":[4132],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cats","tag-cats","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}