Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We live in a very rural area, but almost because of that the road is
more da
ngerous because
there are fewer traffic police around; the traffic might be less frequent but, certain in the
knowledge that they won't be caught speeding, cars drive at ridiculous speeds. But worse,
worst of all, it was Fox that had died, and Fox was Samuel's cat.
Telling your son on his birthday that his beloved cat has been run over and killed is a truly
gut-wrenching thing to have to do. We toyed briefly with the idea of not telling him until the
day after, but that would never have worked as he would have asked where Fox was. We were
all there, Natalie and me and her parents too. He was distraught. He's since said that he just
wanted his birthday to end there and then, that he'll never forget Fox and that he will always
think of him on that day. Like I say, he's a serious-minded boy, mature beyond his years and I
believe him. How could you not now associate your birthday with this event? For the rest of
his life a little part of him will always be sad on his birthday, and on that day he will always
remember Fox.
Maybe I was projecting too many of my own feelings on to Samuel, in my mind saddling
him with a neverending grief that would resurface every year. Taking my anger and bitterness
at the injustice of life and the world and passing it on to my first born. Maybe. But it was so
difficult to watch my beloved son, so young, hurting so much and on his special day. And
like his dad, he's not one to let things go.
In many ways he actually dealt with the aftermath better than I did, trying to be positive and
remember the good times with Fox rather than the end, though he did take to wearing Fox's
collar which was a bit of a concern. He looked a bit like a trainee emo, wearing a sullen ex-
pression and a collar, though it was on his wrist, and it was luminous with a bell. All the cats
have bells on their collars to give the local bird population a fighting chance. With Samuel
having taken to wearing the now sadly unemployed collar, it was difficult to tell whether the
remaining cats were upstairs wrestling somewhere or if Samuel was just energetically vent-
ing his anger and frustration on the Wii. Wearing the collar seemed to give him some kind of
catharsis - he took it off after a week or two - and maybe Fox's death actually affected me
more in the long run.
The winters seemed to be getting longer and harder with every year. I was leaving home
early, and in the dark, to arrive somewhere else in the dark to stay in bland hotels and make
other people laugh. I left home for work on more than one occasion in tears, wrenching my-
self away from my loved ones and every time with dark thoughts in my head, ridiculously,
about whether I'd ever even see them again. A cat had died, but for a time (as the constant
merry-go-round of travel took its toll) I built it into so much more as Fox's death left its men-
tal mark on all of us. It also left its physical scars too. You try digging a grave in frozen
ground when it's minus 10°C.
