In Memory of Drew
by Ron Goodman
My cat was killed by a car last night. Had someone shot my cat, even accidentally, people would have told me to call 911. Had it been food poisoning, people would talk of sueing the cat food company. If a skateboarder had hit my cat, someone would surely have mentioned how reckless skateboarders can be. But a car (which also killed my cat’s sister) is somehow exempt from criticism. Perhaps because of the frequency with which cars kill animals we rationalize that it was just an accident -- even though driving a car poses well known risks to others’ lives.
What of the killer who drove a car over my cat’s body and didn’t bother to stop. Maybe they didn't know what they had done ... so isolated from the environment they drive through ... unaware that a member of my household will no longer participate in our daily activities. Could the driver also be unaware that radiation is peeping through the ozone as land and ocean are sacrificed for oil which will inevitably run out anyway? Or that the polar caps are warming up, that air is becoming unbreathable, that the planet is being paved, that people hide within their auto addiction unable to directly face what is happening and how they are personally responsible?
To my cat. Drew: I am sorry for what my fellow humans have created that ended your happy life at age 2. Your brother and Marni and Trevor and I will miss you greatly.
from the April/May 1992 issue of the People Power Update