A family member

Pepper died today. Pepper, who not even was a year old. Pepper, who was raised by Mackenzie. Pepper the cat.

For one year I worked on a farm and saw a lot of animals dying. From swallow chicken, who have fallen out of the nest, over dead born bunnies to lambs, who had to be shot because of sickness. 

That’s the natural process of nature. Everyday dying about 152.000 people. If we would grieve about everyone like if its a family member, we already would’ve died from psychic dead. 

But there’s a difference if a six-year-old girl watches how you’re digging a whole in the garden. There’s a difference when you see with how much feelings she’s lifting the sand out of the earth, with a shovel, which is way too big for this little girl. There’s a difference if you see looking the girl at the little cat body in the whole. There’s a difference when this six-year-old girl insists on hand-burying the cat with the earth.

I saw a lot of animals dying. And for sure I can say I didn’t felt deep sadness when I realized that Pepper will die. Also not when I saw her coiled up in the whole.

But when I saw Mackenzie with her six years: Full of anger, grief and acceptability at the same time, to hand-bury her cat on her own; I was tearing up, I was crying.

Not because Pepper died. Because of this girl, who never waste a thought about the suffering in the world but grieving the death of her cat that day. A family member.