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It has been said that exile is a form of death. You are uprooted from your family, friends, from familiar surroundings and a predictable environment. Things and people that brought you comfort and support, disappear in a flash. Image being kidnapped, blindfolded, and transported for what feels like an eternity and dropped off in the middle of some unknown city with just a candy bar to get you through the dark, rainy night. You have no shelter and no hope. Perhaps you speak the local dialect, perhaps not. How will the locals treat you? With suspicion, perhaps as a competitor for resources. Will you survive the tougher elements of the street? What's worse is you suddenly realize that it was someone close to you, someone you have always counted on, that did this to you. But you can't fathom why and you just want to get home but which way and how long and how many untold obstacles stand in your way? What if you never get home and if you do, how will you be welcomed? Hope fades fast as all these thoughts cross you mind in an instant.I had a choice. I could take the cat to a shelter where they said he would be destroyed because he was sick with worms or I could send him into exile and give him a fighting chance. He is a tough outdoor cat and I want to believe he will find another family to help him or at least survive. But what kind of life will that be, going from all food cares handled to utterly on his own? He has brought me presents of mice and birds in show of appreciation for the food and affection the kids and I have shown him and this is how I repay him??? It tears my heart out that I had to make a living being especially one close to me suffer but he has brought a plague upon me and (some of) my children. I gave him worm medication but he will keep getting reinfected by his contaminated feces and other critters will be our next woe. So if I had to choose between my children's health and the cat. As much as I love my cat, I chose my children. (See if I say this when I tear the last hair out of my head when they go bonkers).
Last week, I tried to put him in a box but that effort failed so today I purchased a pet carrier and off we drove in the pouring rain. Cats hate car rides, in case you don't know. He was moaning and crying for the half-hour ride. I cried with him albeit not as loud. I just drove. I had tried to make a plan earlier in the day as to the best drop site but nothing materialized so I just let the car take us. Tali lent me moral support for the journey if I may name-drop. I let him off in a residential area and poured some cat food by the curb. He was happy to be out of the car and cage. Before I turned around he was gone.
It struck me on the way home that I had let him off in Babylon, of all places. The namesake of our first exile. And so it was, I displaced my beloved cat as the Babylonians had displaced our forefathers oh so long ago. How they must have felt, how my sweet cat must be feeling now. I cried the whole way home and my computer screen is a shimmering fog right now. Do you know, that now that I come to think of it, I might not even have a picture of him? I was going to put him here on the blog as a lasting memory but I can't. I'll be able to conjure his image but will the kids forget him? No, not him but at least how he looked. Will they ever forgive me if they find out? I'll have to make my own peace with this but I tell you it really hurts.
What went through his mind when he watched me drive off into the night leaving him stranded and all alone? He was alone and scared. His hopes faded, replaced by dispair. As I pictured him looking at my car driving off into the distance, rivulets of water streaming down by the curb, I could not help hearing the words (In Hebrew) "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept as we remembered Zion..."
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