Tid Bit
Dec 09., 2008 
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Five years and four days ago, Keli surprised me with a cat for my birthday. I named the cat “Tid Bit” after reading a Mutts comic strip about a little homeless cat named “Tid Bit”.
Tonight I came home from work to find my wife in tears in our driveway. That’s when I found out that our cat, Tid Bit, had been hit by a car earlier in the evening.
My wife had been standing in the street, unsure of what to do, when I was brought home by a co-worker. Our kids were in the car, in our garage, but they could tell that something was wrong. Before I could go and pick up my cat from the street, we had to calm the kids down and explain what happened. Not what you expect to have happen the evening before your birthday.
After the kids were okay, I took some old baby receiving blankets out and picked Tid Bit up off the pavement. The poor thing, she was so limp and broken. Her fur was still very soft.
Growing up, our pets always had a tendency to die within a day or two of my birthday, so it shouldn’t surprise me that my own cat would follow their lead.
Part of me feels silly for crying like a baby over a cat. But, damnit, she was my cat, and I loved that twitchy, spastic, furball to pieces.
It was only this morning that I was petting her before I left for work.
Two nights ago she laid on my chest while I read “I Am Legend” to Keli.
It was only a few days ago that Keli and I were talking about what “stocking stuffers” we would get Tid Bit this year.
I’m sure going to miss her following me around the house, racing up and down the stairs like a lunatic, how she left eye and right ear always twitched when she got really riled up and how she always ran to lick the water off of my ankles when I stepped out of the shower in the mornings.
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One of the most dreaded days that are coming in my life is the day that my cat Shayla passes. I know it will happen, I know it will come but I dread it. I cannot imagine what that feels like… I am so sorry for you and your family, it has to be tough to have to explain it to the kids while you also have the pain to deal with.
Have one for tid bit! I am sure it will be appreciated.
logtar’s last blog post..Steroids
I cried reading your post. I grow up with pets all the time, but I’ve never gotten attached to them… until now, with Shayla and Maia. Those two are like my kids.
I can’t even imagine how you must be feeling now, Daniel. I’m really sorry. Tid Bit was a beauty, and I’m glad you have fond memories of her.
One of the formative experiences of my youth was when we came home after Thanksgiving to find our cat’s collar on the front door with a note; she’d been hit by a car on Bennett Valley road (which our back yard ran up to). My sister and I walked down the road with a cardboard box to collect her remains and bury her back home. Not easy.