In my last post I referenced having another tragic event happen in between my trip back to visit with my Mom this past week. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with already. I’m starting to believe a curse is upon me or someone has a voodoo doll with my name on it.

Furthermore, if you are tired of reading very long posts where bad things are constantly happening then you may want to skip this not-so-lovely post today.

To begin…

When we got home on Wednesday I hugged by boys, played with them then starting re-packing to leave and drive back 3 hours to where my Mom was. During all of this I also started cleaning the house up since we had left it a disaster the morning we left for Cincinnati. While Hot Daddy tackled the dishes, I started doing laundry.

The minutes after this will forever be embedded in my memory, or maybe not because I’m really trying my hardest to forget.

So, I put some clothes along with a blanket into the dryer then walked over to my MIL’s to get my youngest son’s medicine to pack for our trip back. During that time, we had some family come to visit and they wanted to see our kittens. So, my son comes to me and says he can’t find our kitten, Graby. So I went into the house and started calling for Graby thinking he would be in his favorite hiding place under my bed but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t lying in the bathtub either. And then I decided to check the dryer since I heard an unusual knocking sound. And even though I went and opened up the dryer door, I really didn’t expect to find him there. What I found was probably one of the more traumatic things in my life so far. Our little Graby was lifeless in the dryer. I had accidentally killed my little boy’s kitten. The immediate pain I felt knowing that I had actually contributed to an animal’s death was shocking.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I had let my children down. I know this is just a cat I am talking about here, and life can get much much worse but it’s still heartbreaking especially when I see my kids hurting.

Everyone says that it’s not my fault but ultimately I am responsible. I’m angry at myself for not checking the dryer before turning it on. I’m angry because I walked away. I’m angry at the cat for getting in the dryer. I’m angry because no one else thought to check out the weird thumping sound in the dryer. Ultimately, I’m exhausted, my kids are hurting, and I keep replaying everything over and over as if I can change something. I know that accidents happen all the time but knowing this still doesn’t make me feel any better. I know the feeling I feel right now will go away in time…probably within a few days. Talking about it helps. Constantly going back to “Hey, it’s JUST a cat!” helps too.

Having this happen has really made me realize that I’ve got too much going on in my life right now. It’s time I started doing something about it because life is way too short to live like this where you are so busy that you don’t even realize your cat is missing until you’ve found it dead in the dryer 30 minutes later.

I’ve got to stop the stress and worry over things/people I cannot control. And, I’ve got to stop being nice and start saying no so that I’m not so frazzled and pulled in a thousand different directions every day of my life. It’s funny how a freak accident put it all into perspective for me.