She's Got The Biggest Heart

Good grief am I nostalgic these days or what!!  I have no idea what that's about but... my brain is being flooded with these memories!  So I am going to share them with you as they come to me, the interesting ones anyway.  

When I was in the 8th grade, I met my friend K.  I just posted about her a few weeks back because she had a baby (cute little thing, now like 3 weeks old.)  Anyway, we remained best friends through all of 8th grade and all of high school.  She is still one of my best friends, although I haven't seen her since 2009.  

Recently, her mom posted a picture on facebook of K and her baby daughter asleep together in a chair.  Such a cute picture!  Someone commented on it something like, "wow she's a mom!" and K's mom responded "and a very good one too!"  And then I was smacked in the face with this memory:

In early Spring of 2002 (I believe) my phone rang at home one day after school.  It was K, and she was sobbing hysterically.  

Me: What's wrong??
K: (unintelligible crying)
Me: Calm down and tell me what's wrong! I can't understand you.
K: Oh my God it's so sad....
Me: WHAT???
K:  There's a cat... in the road... Kate, it's just laying there!
Me:  Is it dead?
K: (wailing) Yes!  I was walking from the bus and I saw it get hit and now it's just.... laying there!  I have to help it!  
Me:  I'll be right over!

So I told my mom there was an emergency and I had to go to K's RIGHT NOW!  My mom drove me over.  I ran up to K's third floor apartment and knocked, but she wasn't there.  I looked over the porch and down to the street and saw K on the sidewalk, waiting for cars to stop coming so she could run to the lifeless gray mound of fur in the middle of Laidlaw Rd.  "K!!!" I shouted.  "Stop!  What are you going to pick it up with??"  She heard me, and came upstairs.

We went into her house and tried to think of what to do.  Obviously the cat was dead.  We couldn't save its' life.  But it seemed wrong to just leave it in the road to decay.  K had a cat at the time and the thought of that having been her cat was just too much to bear.  "If it were my cat," K said, "I would want someone to tell me."  So we got a trash bag (unceremonious, I know, but it was all we could come up with) and went out and peeled the cat off the pavement.  

We wanted to bury it but we didn't have a shovel, nor was there anywhere to bury the poor thing.  So we took the dark green collar off the cat's neck, tied the end of the bag off, said a quick prayer for the cat's soul, and placed it in the dumpster.  Neither of us felt as though that was quite the right thing to do, but it was really the best we could do at the time.  

Much to our dismay, the tag on the cat's collar only said a name (which I can't remember now) and no address or phone number.  Clearly this was someone's pet, someone's baby... we had to find it's owners.  So for the next hour and a half, K and I went from door to door in her apartment complex, in the February rain, trying to find this poor cat's family.  

We were about to give up when a lady in jeans and a sweater, with blondish hair and glasses opened the door.  "Are you missing a cat?" I said.  "Yes," the lady answered.  K said, "Is it gray?"  The lady nodded.  "Oh God," K covered her mouth and turned away.  "Is he gone?" The lady pursed her lips, knowing what I was going to say.  "Yes," I said, holding up his collar.  "We found him.... I'm so sorry."  The lady's eyes immediately filled with tears and she breathed in really deeply.  "Thank you," she said, but her voice shook a lot.  She took the collar from my hand and closed the door.  We weren't offended, we understood that she didn't want to cry a bunch in front of two fifteen-year-old kids at her doorstep.  K and I walked back to her apartment, holding hands (Not romantically of course.  We were the kind of besties who were very tactile.  Always hugging, linking arms, holding hands, etc. even if it was "uncool" to do in the 10th grade.)

I remember the exchange at the woman's door so vividly.  I'll never forget the look on her face when she figured out why we were there, even before we told her the reality.  She didn't ask where the cat was, and we didn't tell her.  I mean, how do you tell someone you threw their cat in the dumpster in a plastic bag?  It was just as well anyway, it's better she remember the cat how he looked when he was alive.  The way he looked at that time was not a lovely sight.

The thing that I remember the most, however, was that I was so not surprised by K's reaction to the cat.  She's got the biggest heart.  She loves very immensely.  K is not someone who holds grudges forever (unlike me.)  Any animal is immediately "the cutest thing ever."  She loves children.  From the moment she told me she was pregnant, I knew this child was in for a really great life.  Whatever happens in this little girl's life, K will be by her side.  I know I can learn a lot from K.  I already have.