A very first pet tragedy, well kind of!

If you know Darren at all, you know that he is definetly not an animal lover. We had a dog named "Macho" that Darren just LOVED( can you sense the sarcasm?) Well, Macho was purchased for a lot of money one Christmas. He ended up not being exactly what we paid for, which was suppost to be this fluffy, curly, cute little dog. Instead, he was a skinny, straight haired, ugly dog that found its way over to my parents house (about 3 blocks away) every chance he could get. We ended up giving up and just letting him stay there. Sorry DAD! And he became more of my parents ugly little dog than ours. So when he dissapeared one day on one of his neighborhood adventures, we weren't too terribly upset.
As most of you know we built a lovely home on an amazing piece of land. When we first cleared the lot, Darren killed about 4-5 rattlesnakes. Even though he hates animals, he agreed and was really the one who pushed the issue of getting some cats. He said that they would keep the rattlesnakes, scorpions, and mice away. Lan and Sarah graciously let us have two of their kittens from like the 4th litter of their cat. Sarah said these cats would be great hunters. Darren loved the sound of that and jumped on the chance of having two more great hunters as part of the family.

We waited patiently as they grew to be old enough to leave their mom and "learn how to survive in the mean and cruel invironment in which they have to live". When we finally got them home, they were wonderful and Darren actually liked them. We let Darren name them. He named them after his beloved football team. The girl he named, "Dallas" and the boy, "Cowboy".

Yesterday, I spent all day trying to clean out the garage so that I could park my car in it. Since we have moved in, a lot of our "things" haven't been moved in and are just sitting in it. Dallas and Cowboy have this annoying love for the vehicles. They are always climbing up into them. I was getting tired of taking the 5 extra minutes in the morning to get them out of my car so that I could go to work. I needed the garage cleaned out so that this wouldn't be an issue any longer. Well, I got really close. I actually only needed Darren's help to get a few big, heavy things moved to the side. We ended up not moving them because we were so tired.

Darren and Jensen went to church a little early to save us seat (our ward is so much bigger now you know!) and Morgan and I finished primping. When we were done we headed out to the car, which was not in the garage, and called for the cats. They will usually come out if you call or honk the horn. I honked the horn about six times before deciding they were not in it. I even said to Morgan, "Well, if they are still up there, it will be their own fault if they get killed". I still didn't see anything jump out from the bottom of the car when I started the engine. I looked one more time to see if I could see them on the porch. I didn't and thought that maybe they were on the front porch. So I put the car into drive and started to move. As a made a turn I heard something that didn't sound right from under the car. Morgan thought that it was just the stuff in the back shifting. I heard this a few more times on my way to church. I looked behind me a few times to see if there was a kitten that had fallen out. Nothing. When I parked the car at the church, I told Morgan that I was going to check one more time to see if I could see anything under the car. As I bent down and looked, I saw Cowboy's cute little tail hanging down in the front. I screamed. Morgan looked and saw it too. I tried to keep it together for Morgan's sake. She had already started crying. We went into the church building to get Darren. Darren went to go see if Cowboy was alive. He came back and told Morgan to go sit down with Jensen and not to say anything to him. After Morgan left I couldn't help but cry. I had killed their kitten. All of the "what ifs" flooded my mind and made me cry more. What if I had just cleaned out the garage enough to park the car in it last night, what if I had just gone with Darren (we would have taken his truck), what if I had just taken the extra 5 minutes that I usually take to find them before I left.

We still didn't know where Dallas was. Darren told me to go back to the car and call for Cowboy. He said that maybe he wasn't coming to him because he was still scared or something. I knew that was wrong because they would both go to Darren before they would come to me (that is a MAJOR first). As I approached the car, I noticed Cowboy's lifeless body had fallen from the car. I cried uncontrollably. When Darren made it over with his truck, he had to come and lift me off of the ground. He told me to"hold it together, we are in public!" I wasn't even thinking about what an idiot I must look like. I got in Darren's truck and Darren put Cowboy into the back. We followed the path that I took to church. We didn't see Dallas anywhere. When we got back to the house we still couldn't see her. Finally, Darren found her in one of the hollow pipes laying on the back porch. She seemed a little scared or confused. I don't know if she was in the car too and had just made it out, or if she was there in the pipe the whole time.
We went back to church and after sacrament meeting, a sister came up to me and asked me if I was okay. I started to tear up a little and told her what had happened. She said that her husband had heard me crying from his house (not very far from the church, across the street infact) and started to rush over to me when Darren pulled up in the truck and scooped me up into his arms. I told her that I was sorry for making such a scene over a kitten. They probably thought that one of the children had died or something. After church, I had Jensen go home with Darren so that I didn't have to be the one to tell him. When we got home I watched for Jensen to get out of the truck. He was crying. My heart was breaking. It was breaking for my children, for Dallas, and even for Darren. Darren loved to come home from work and sit on the back porch and watch Dallas and Cowboy wrestle. He would laugh. It was quite a show to watch them.

It has been hours later and I still feel so heavy inside. I wonder if this how my mom felt when she ran over my childhood cat "Taffy". This is such a horrible feeling. The only thing that makes me have any comfort, is knowing that Lan and Sarah's cat loves being pregnant just as much as Sarah. She will give birth in about 4-6 weeks to a new litter. Sarah already said that we could have one to replace Cowboy. The children and Darren say that they will name it Cowboy. Is that wrong??? Anyway, I guess all of the kittens from the litter, that we got from Dallas and Cowboy from, have all passed on to kitty heaven the same way. I guess they were all CAR RIDERS. Dallas is the only one left. I hope this next litter doesn't like cars!

Sorry for such the long blog. I guess I just needed to get it out.