Zachary's Funeral

Yesterday we buried my sister's cat, Zachary. Funerals are always sad, but bizarrely, sometime burying a pet is much worse than burying a human. What pet has ever deliberately done you harm? Most are creatures that just provide unconditional love, warmth and companionship.

My sister had Zachary longer than she's had her children. He was a beautiful black and white domestic shorthair, and in his younger days, we never knew him because he was your typical 'scaredy cat'. In later years, he endeared us during family gatherings. The food would arrive on the table and with a loud "MEOW" he was underfoot, begging for a treat.

"He has kidney disease, don't feed him anything" my sister would screech, as I dropped him a morsel of chicken or whatever was on the grill. Poor cat was on a special diet to prolong his miserable life. I just wanted him to have something tasty to eat besides dry cat food.

The treats didn't kill him - he lived years beyond the barbeques.

So, we dug a hole for him in our backyard, where our old house used to be (we demolished it last year and built a new house closer to the street). Zachary had been in a crypt for a couple of weeks (actually, a garbage can in the shed) because the ground was frozen and we couldn't dig a grave. My brother-in-law was somewhat grossed out about handling the body - I think it was his first experience with personally burying a pet. I would have been more gentle about placing the cat in the grave, but he sort of unceremoniously dumped Zach out of the garbage can and into the hole... maybe he was just trying to be the 'tough guy'... I don't know.

Zachary had a "Fly Over" - two sets of geese and a helicopter. If a cat can have a military funeral, Zach had it. In a nature sort of way.

We put our wilted Christmas wreaths over the grave, along with some good heavy stones, to discourage the coyotes from digging him up for a snack. My sister and I cried a little bit. My brother-in-lay said "Bye, Zach" as he drove away - and so we cried a little more.

All this for a cat.

Bye, Zach.