This is life
The other day on my commute to work, I was heading south on Anderson Road. Just as I was coming to the exit ramp from the Veterans Expressway, I saw four Sheriff vehicles on the side of the northbound lanes of Anderson. There were two other Sheriff vehicles in the median. I saw a car down in what I'll call a ditch but it's really not -- just a slope down from the road. The car was facing south. I wondered why there were so many Sheriff vehicles since it appeared whoever had been or was still in the car was not hurt. There were no ambulances or paramedics; there wasn't even a siren somewhere in the distance to let everyone know medical help was on the way. And because there were already six Sheriff vehicles in attendance, the accident must have happened some time before I got there.
All of us humans (including me) were so drawn to the wayward car and the Sheriff vehicles that no one noticed there was a newly dead tabby cat straddling the broken lines of the southbound lanes. I almost ran over it. And I thought, here we are, so enmeshed in our own human drama over a slight accident that we just drive past this fully grown cat, who was alive a short while before, and go on about our daily lives. We don't take the time to care that this cat died, killed by a human driving a vehicle to work, to school, to do errands. We drive around it and forget all about it in a minute or two. It's just a strange cat with no meaning in our own lives and, unless this cat wandered several miles from human residences, it was probably a stray fed by employees of the nearby hotel or the businesses occupying the area behind the pond hidden by trees.
For whatever reason, this dead cat, all alone in the middle of a very busy road, trying to make it to the other side where there are restaurants, trying maybe to find some sort of breakfast, made me cry all the way to work. This cat lived and he died, and I wonder does anyone miss him, or was this cat merely a stray whom no one wanted in their home but who managed to live because some people fed him. I know there are human beings who are thrown away like garbage and left to survive or die. And I know some people die and no one remembers them after they're gone. But I guess it's the sight of a body in the middle or the side of the road and that fact that we just keep on going where we're going without stopping to say "I'm sorry that you died, little one." When you see the crosses with flowers and/or words on the side of the road, you know that a human being died on that road and they are missed. So, what I do when I see a dead bird or animal, wild or domesticated, I say a prayer of peace over their dead bodies left to rot in the sun. And then I plant a symbolic white cross where their bodies lie so that when God or the Great Spirit or whatever is watching over us looks down on this planet, he/she will see that many of the dead bird and animal babies who died on the roads of Hillsborough County (and beyond occasionally) have been noticed and mourned by one human being.
You probably think I'm crazy. But I believe that sometimes when a soul is ejected suddenly and violently from the body due to an abrupt and unforeseen death. it can get confused and lost and stay around, not realizing it is dead or not wanting to die. So, my hope is that a prayer will help the animal or bird (and one time, a human) go on, away from this planet, to wherever souls journey after they leave the body. I understand not everyone accepts the idea that animals and birds have souls, but for me I believe everything that is born, lives, breathes, and dies on this planet has a spirit which animates it, which makes it who or what it is. For me, there can be no other way.
All of us humans (including me) were so drawn to the wayward car and the Sheriff vehicles that no one noticed there was a newly dead tabby cat straddling the broken lines of the southbound lanes. I almost ran over it. And I thought, here we are, so enmeshed in our own human drama over a slight accident that we just drive past this fully grown cat, who was alive a short while before, and go on about our daily lives. We don't take the time to care that this cat died, killed by a human driving a vehicle to work, to school, to do errands. We drive around it and forget all about it in a minute or two. It's just a strange cat with no meaning in our own lives and, unless this cat wandered several miles from human residences, it was probably a stray fed by employees of the nearby hotel or the businesses occupying the area behind the pond hidden by trees.
For whatever reason, this dead cat, all alone in the middle of a very busy road, trying to make it to the other side where there are restaurants, trying maybe to find some sort of breakfast, made me cry all the way to work. This cat lived and he died, and I wonder does anyone miss him, or was this cat merely a stray whom no one wanted in their home but who managed to live because some people fed him. I know there are human beings who are thrown away like garbage and left to survive or die. And I know some people die and no one remembers them after they're gone. But I guess it's the sight of a body in the middle or the side of the road and that fact that we just keep on going where we're going without stopping to say "I'm sorry that you died, little one." When you see the crosses with flowers and/or words on the side of the road, you know that a human being died on that road and they are missed. So, what I do when I see a dead bird or animal, wild or domesticated, I say a prayer of peace over their dead bodies left to rot in the sun. And then I plant a symbolic white cross where their bodies lie so that when God or the Great Spirit or whatever is watching over us looks down on this planet, he/she will see that many of the dead bird and animal babies who died on the roads of Hillsborough County (and beyond occasionally) have been noticed and mourned by one human being.
You probably think I'm crazy. But I believe that sometimes when a soul is ejected suddenly and violently from the body due to an abrupt and unforeseen death. it can get confused and lost and stay around, not realizing it is dead or not wanting to die. So, my hope is that a prayer will help the animal or bird (and one time, a human) go on, away from this planet, to wherever souls journey after they leave the body. I understand not everyone accepts the idea that animals and birds have souls, but for me I believe everything that is born, lives, breathes, and dies on this planet has a spirit which animates it, which makes it who or what it is. For me, there can be no other way.
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