As the great Harvey Pekar once said, “Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.” Life lately has been pretty complex. Great challenges often end up leading to great successes, and I’m hoping that this phase of my life reflects that.

On Memorial Day weekend, we had some friends over. Everything was normal until…. Our cat came stumbling down the stairs, panicked and disoriented, and our guest’s child came chasing after trying to pick it up. In my memory, it was like a scene from a scary movie. We quickly realized that something was wrong. Our cat could not use his right leg, it was clearly injured. I took Dog (that’s my cat’s name) to the emergency vet where it was determined that his right leg was broken in at least two places (we’d later find out it was much worse), and it would require surgery. Options were a plate and screws,or worst case, amputation.

As the story was relayed from my daugher, who, it must be said, saved the cat’s life, the child was grabbing the cat by the legs to get it out from under her bed, and proceeded to slam him on the ground multiple times, ultimately jumping on the cat in an effort to keep him still. My daughter stopped him and let the cat out of her room, but you can see where this was going. It should be noted that this story was later confirmed by the child who did this.

My wife had the task of cleaning pee and poop from his fur for 2 weeks, endless laundry, reapplying a splint that continuously fell off his leg no matter what we tried, all because our cat couldn’t move until we could get him into surgery. Hours a day were consumed just trying to keep him clean and healthy. The cost of the surgery was small compared to all the work, day and night, that resulted.

Two weeks later - and our “friends” have decided that they aren’t “comfortable” with the cost of surgery required to repair our cat’s leg. They were very willing to pay for the damage their son caused, they repeatedly told us they’d pay for it, accepted liability, until it became real I suppose. When a person can only think of their own comfort in this situation, while an innocent animal has been mamed… well, I don’t really have the words.

We have souls, we got Dog his surgery, and he is doing so much better. A plate, 3 wires, a bone graft, and 10 screws later. He is still the most loving and kind cat you’ve ever met. The surgeon and his staff couldn’t stop telling us what a nice and loving cat he was. We knew that, he always has been. When others heard the news, it was their first comment almost every time.

I don’t know how long it will take me to process this. But our cat is looking at a long road. 3 months minimum before we can let him free in our house again. Medications for weeks. But we’ll get through it, and Dog will to. We can rest at night knowing that we stood up and made sure this innocent creature could heal from this inexcusable event that was forced upon him. I can only hope that the people who handled this the way they did will find help for themselves and their son.