(S9) - Weekend PT 3 - Pets

[GoonerBear]

An excerpt from a sit-down with Kolby Deringer on the subject coming up:

We had quite a few pets over the years in my childhood, though the one I think of that stands out was one we never officially owned.

There was a cat I used to see around the neighborhood when we lived in Slidell. I never did find out her given name or who owned her or if anyone even had owned her, though we called her Sally. She was a stray tortoiseshell cat my siblings and I warmed up to, though our parents never let us keep her out of fear of her carrying disease.

We still loved her and played with her when she came by. We fed her on the sly, despite their warnings not to out of fear of her or us becoming attached, even though that's exactly what happened. We never got any rodent problems around our house, even as the neighbors had a mouse or rat family pop up from time to time.

We couldn't take her with us when Katrina hit.

Among other things that worried my young mind at the time was how Sally fared. We hit a point after some time, we just assumed she didn't make it. The flooding alone caused a lot of damage and the people who did go back, their houses had four to six feet of stagnant water inside. Someone finally did confirm what we feared when one of our old neighbors called to check in with my parents and we overheard Dad talk about her. All I can comfortably say here is it was pretty obvious she was dead. And this was back before smart phones and our parents kept the only camera we had stored out of reach, so we never got a picture of her even for the vigil.

What does uplift my heart about this was the thought we might meet again, once I'm done on this Earth. Popes over time have debated and had their say on whether animals will be in heaven or not. At the very least, the most recent decree from Francis is they will. Maybe I'll get to see her then, among the others who have gone.

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