Hold the dog. Cry into his wiry hair as you stand guard in the middle of the street to make sure the cars go around the women crouched by the cat in the middle of the road.
One of the women has her hands on the cat. Her cat. She will die, or is already dead. Her cat. She can't survive this. Too much damage. Too much blood. Her cat.
"Just be with her," says her partner. She runs inside the house to collect items needed to move a loved one with such severe injuries out of the road.
Hands on the cat. Be with the cat. Everyone cries when she is moved from the street.
The crows are watching you, watching the women. One of them makes a scolding call. Then a danger call. More crows arrive and as you leave the scene you hear maybe a dozen of them make the same cries they make when they see one of their own injured or dead.
They understand. They know we are feeling pain. They know we have lost one of ours.
Eventually you set the dog down even though you never want to let him go again. You go home and pick up your own cat, your own sweet royal pain in the ass cat, and tell her how much you love her. She squirms and panics like she always does when you hold her. She digs her claws into you in her efforts to escape. You contort your body into a weird shape so you can set her onto the floor and unhook her claws without tearing your flesh or your clothing. She lets you, because she knows this routine. Then she books it under the bed for the next five minutes. So you go to the store and buy her new cat litter so she can have a pretty place to shit and when you come back she greets you at the door.
You show your cat the flowers you bought at the store. Simple lilies. Not fancy. But they are orange and brown and dappled and fluffy like the fur of the cat who was struck by the car. Your cat doesn't care. Just change her litter box. Give her treats.
You don't know the name of the people who lost their cat, but you fill out a card anyway and tape it to the cellophane the flowers are wrapped in. Put a cat sticker on the envelope. Grab your dog and his glowy night collar and your stun gun because Portland is officially sketchy now and head out into the dark 10pm night with the flowers. You walk four blocks to the house. It's dark. Porch light off. You leave the flowers on the welcome mat. Head back home.
On the way you pass someone dismounting his bicycle in front of his house.
"No crows tonight, huh?"
You laugh cordially and say something about nighttime and sleeping crows and continue on. You don't know this guy, but he knows you.
That's the thing about being the crow lady, you realize. You are a part of the community, no matter how introverted and odd you may feel. Your existence matters. You have a place. You are part of the whole.
Just like the kitty. She was a part of the whole. Seen frequently on walks. Puffy. Wary of Pilot, who wants only ever to whimper and sniff and play with the kitties.
All cats, all birds, all dogs, all bugs, all squirrels, all neighbors, everything everywhere is a part of the whole you go out into every day when you visit the crows. We are all connected. We all make this place.
Although we are not acquainted, and I don't even know your kitty's name, my dog and I regularly saw her on our walks.
She will be missed.
I'm sorry for your loss.
With Love,
Anna and Pilot
All pictures and words copyright Anna Horvitz (me) and cannot be used without my consent.
