Long before I ever visited a real graveyard, my family had an extensive Kitty Graveyard.
There was a shady spot on the far side of the backyard dedicated to all our cats who had died. Plots were separated into families and clans, all marked with the smooth, round, black and white stones that lined our neighbors’ fancy driveways.
I can easily recall summer afternoons searching for sticks to make fences under the Queen Anne’s Lace. We made headstones from cardboard wrapped in clear plastic. Little crosses were willow branches tied together with long blades of grass.
We had some famous cat names in our pet cemetery: Liza Sheba, Engelbert Humperdinck III. There were several graves, small, all the same age from a litter of kittens that didn’t live more than a day. It was a pleasant pastime to clean the weeds, re-wrap the crosses, sit on the edge of the known universe, so close to the edge of the neighborhood, and wonder where all those cats and kittens had gone. Wonder whether they were thinking of me. Wonder what their souls became.
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Here’s an interesting group called the Pet Loss Professionals Alliance whose mission is to provide education and opportunities for professional growth for providers of pet-related death care services.
