Warning: Graphic Content. Finish your breakfast first.

This is how much my cat loves me. He brings me gifts.

Honestly, I’ve been waiting for this. He never brought me a thing while we lived in Texas but it seems this Texas cat enjoys the thrill of living in Tennessee.

Upon seeing my front porch gift I was immediately transported back to the late 80s when we lived in Germany. Our cat, Heidi (of course our German cat was named Heidi), was a master at gift-giving. Every morning and afternoon there was something new left kindly on our front porch – some with their bodies in tact, some with only a few organs left. At ages 9, 10, and 11, I was wholeheartedly in love with all animals, and though I knew Heidi was doing her cat duty, I felt badly for the mice she was killing.

Quickly into her gift-giving process I began giving the dead mice proper burials. In a brown paper lunch sack, I’d wrap the dead mouse in a napkin and pick a rose bud from one of the bushes beside the porch and place it inside. Then I’d dig a small hole either in the rose garden or among the rhubarb and lay the mouse to rest. By now, Heidi was already on the hunt again or napping inside. She had no use for formality, but I thought it was the proper and kind thing to do. I have no idea the number of mice I buried in the three years we lived in that house.

You’re probably thinking I buried Salem’s mouse, and to be quite honest, I thought about it. But then I realized that Salem could just as easily dig it up and decide NOT to leave its body in tact, and then I felt shivers down my spine as I considered what it would be like to clean up a pile of organs…

So I scooped it up in a napkin, placed it in a paper lunch sack and tossed it in the trash bin outside. Salem watched proudly from the doorstep as I did this.

He loves me and I have a dead mouse to prove it.

Happy Weekend!