I find myself thinking tonight about the various animals I've seen die. Not by intention, it just keeps coming to mind. I'm not really sure why. Maybe I've "got the morbs".
I was maybe 17. One of the cats that lived in our barns (and mainly the garage) had kittens. One of the kittens must somehow have been neglected by its mother, because it got to the verge of death. My mother decided to take it inside, put it under a blanket, heat up some milk for it, and try to nurse it back to health. I sat there and helped her feed it with an eyedropper pipette. It choked on what we tried to feed it, and died after a couple of minutes. If anything it's almost comedic: we killed it.
I think I was 20 or 21. Still living at home with my parents, as I do now. We had an outdoor dog named Graham. He was a big, stout hound, with long orange and white fur and a wild personality. Graham liked to run. He would chase after (and catch, kill, and eat) rabbits. Another habit of his was chasing cars as they drove past. We tried to discourage this habit, but he was stubborn, difficult to teach if he didn't want to learn. So he still chased cars. One day, the entire family went to church, and when we returned from church, Graham was in pieces at the end of the driveway. There were parts of him scattered across the driveway and down the road. The theory is that he chased a tractor that drove by and got tangled up in the machinery. I remember my mother and sister screaming. I remember laughing, smirking. Not at the situation, but at my family's reaction. I don't know why I did, that's the thing. I don't know why I laughed. It was sad. I enjoyed having the dog around. But I was amused.
Last year sometime, springtime I think, we found a nest of baby rabbits in the garden. Rabbits are a pest animal, we can't have them in our vegetable garden. I went to the garage and got a large and flat shovel. They were newborn and helpless, which is probably a good thing, because they were faster to kill. I smashed the shovel flat, as hard as I could, on each rabbit. The goal was to kill them quickly and painlessly. I'm sure it was instant and painless, but they splatter a little bit: their guts exploded. I remember thinking that I should feel bad. Rabbits are cute, and they're mammals. That's the thing, though. I didn't feel bad. I thought it was weird, but I felt oddly pleased. Maybe it was because I was saving our kale plants. (I love garden kale. It's a great snack.) My father asked me if I was okay. "Fine," I told him, "I think I need a drink of water."