Strays

Leaving a meeting in Pasadena today, walking to my car parked behind the restaurant, I saw a lovely tortoise shell cat that seemed to be watching me from just outside the kitchen door. I meowed to it. No response. Not even an ear twitch. I meowed a few more times, got no response. This is weird, to not even be acknowledged! Then I realized one was eye was strange, so I walked toward it. No movement. Finally as I got really close, it showed some sign of life, and I slowly reached down to pet its head. Now I could see the matted hair, could feel the bones just beneath the skin, and the one eye--blue grey and bulging out of its small head. It seemed to move painfully, but purposefully closer to my hand, so I gently rubbed the neck and legs and belly and back. It is never pleasant to pet a skeletal cat, and the cat seemed to both want and be hurt by the petting. I could not bring myself to pick it up, though. It was going to be hard enough to leave already. I thought about asking the kitchen staff if they took care of it or not, and if not, taking it to the Humane Society. That would mean euthanasia, most likely, since it was clearly old and in need of costly medical attention that I'm sure they would not provide. Then I saw a cat box fitted with blankets under the eaves, and decided it did have some kind of home here, if not all the love it needed. I walked to my car and the small cat tried to follow as best it could. I said, "No, I can't take you home." It seemed to understand and stopped at the steps up to the parking lot. Thank goodness. That would have been a heartbreak.

I pondered what would have been the right thing to do if the cat had been a mere stray, unwanted and uncared for by anyone? Would it not have been kinder to deliver it into the hands of those who could end its painful life? Most would probably say yes, because it is an animal and we think a painless death is a better fate than life on the streets without love and care. Yes, most of us would think that was the moral choice.

I'm writing this because the meeting I was at prior to the cat was with a roomful of people who work very hard to help stray children find homes; kids who have grown up in the foster care system because their parents were abusive, or drug addicted, or incarcerated, or all of the above. These kids have enough scabs and scars on their hearts to make it virtually impossible for them to receive love without it hurting so much it makes them lash out at the very ones trying to love them. They all desperately want to be loved, but it is not pleasant to hold a kid who is cursing at you and threatening to slash your tires because she thinks you hate her.

And yet, these kids grow up and turn 18 and then many of them end up on the streets. Worse off than the cat, because most restaurants don't put up with kids sleeping outside the kitchen. Most businesses call the cops. Our state had finally begun to put something into place for these kids...financial and emotional support and housing and medical care...to keep them sober and sane as they made that risky crossing from adolescence to adulthood. But it has now been cut--slashed rather--along with many many many other prograams that have been a lifeline for the traumatized children of LA County. The ten kids we had set up in apartments (chosen from many more who had applied) had to be cut down to 4 last month. Of those cut, some have already gottn into trouble with the law and will likely end up in jail. And once that happens, most of them are truly lost. The ones who don't go to jail will likely develop drug addicitons, end up homeless, not go to college, not have any kind of sustaining career, and have children they can't support and can't parent and who will eventually be put into the same system they came out of.  

Is that the moral choice? Is that the humane decision? Have we decided, collectively, that this is ok with us? Maybe we think they must deserve it? They must have deserved to be born to meth-addicted mothers and fathers, left to feed themselves at the age of 4 or 5, never knowing what it was like to be part of a family that protects you? Have we made the decision that prison guard unions should  have more voice and power in politics than Social Service agencies? That oil companies deserve more protection than our own children?

Because make no mistake, these are OUR children. They don't live in the Third World. They live right here in LA. And although we, as individuals, have not directly made those choices, We HAVE decided. And we have decided not to think about it too much.